National

India Reports 5th Death and over 220 Cases: How Government is Tackling Coronavirus Pandemic

India has tested around 13,285 people while WHO has urged countries to test every suspect case, not just people with relevant travel or contact history.

New Delhi| The coronavirus outbreak claimed its first death in Rajasthan on Friday as a 69-year-old Italian citizen died during treatment at the Fortis Hospital in Jaipur. This is the first death of a foreign national in India due to COVID-19.

Three days ago, the state government had claimed that Italian patient, Andri Carly, had recovered from the infection. He was shifted from the isolation ward inside SMS hospital to Fortis hospital where he passed away on Friday morning.

India’s government is facing criticism for the relatively low number of tests it’s administered to detect cases of the new coronavirus, raising fears that tens of thousands of patients may be going undetected. India has tested only about 12,000 people so far, despite a capacity to test about ten times that many.

Only people who have travelled from the worst affected countries or come in contact with a confirmed case and shown symptoms after two weeks of quarantine are being tested — criteria that experts call “very narrow.”

The World Health Organization has urged countries to test every suspect case, not just people with relevant travel or contact history.

The number of coronavirus positive cases in India rose to 223 on Friday.

Twenty states and Union territories are now affected in India by Covid-19, the Union health ministry said. Maharashtra and Kerala are the worst affected states with 52 and 28 cases reported so far.

Also Read: ‘A Tsunami is Coming’: Rahul Gandhi On Coronavirus Epidemic

“The numbers are not that high as of now and there is no evidence of community transmission found yet. But we are prepared and reviewing our strategy each day as it is an evolving situation,” a senior health ministry official said.

Five people have succumbed to the fast-spreading respiratory illness across the country, according to Union health ministry data.

Only someone who has symptoms of the disease, such as a cough, fever and breathlessness, can get tested under India’s Covid-19 testing guidelines if they fulfil one of these conditions: they should have travelled to an affected country and/or had contact with a confirmed case.
Until now, India has tested 12,426 people — nearly 9.2 tests per million people. By contrast, Italy had tested 165,541 people until March 18, 2020, or 2,740.75 tests per million. South Korea, which has been able to stabilise the spread of the disease, with a low fatality rate of 0.9 per cent, had tested 295,647 people until March 18, 2020 — 5,729.6 per million — and is continuing to mass test 20,000 people every day, for free. The U.K. is testing about 1,500 cases daily — 846.7 per million people — and is planning to ramp this up to 10,000.
“Test, test, test” is the message that the World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gave to all countries on March 16, 2020.
(Inputs from Agencies)
Dear Readers,
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.

Related posts