With another senior citizen succumbing to COVID-19 in the State, the death toll touched 17 on Tuesday. The day saw 10 more cases being detected, taking the total number of cases to 418.
An 80-year-old male patient, a resident of Kalaburagi, who had Parkinson’s disease since four years and was bedridden for the last three years, was admitted on April 19 at a designated hospital in Kalaburagi with complaints of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI). He passed away on Monday morning and his report came positive late in the night.
Of the 10 new cases, three each are from Vijayapura and Kalaburagi, two from Nanjangud in Mysuru, and one each from Belagavi and Dakshina Kannada.
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On Tuesday, 17 persons have been discharged after recovering from COVID-19. These include seven from Mysuru, three from Bengaluru Urban, one from Bengaluru Rural, three from Belagavi, and two from Bagalkot, said Suresh Kumar, Primary and Secondary Education Minister.
Following reports about the poor accuracy of rapid antibody blood-based test strips across the country, the government that has received 11,400 strips from the ICMR’s pool three days ago, is getting the strips validated by experts from NIMHANS.
“A team of experts led by V. Ravi, senior professor and Head of Neuro Virology at NIMHANS, are validating the claims of accuracy made by the manufacturer. After the validation, which is likely to be done in a day or two, we will allot it for random tests in districts identified by ICMR,” said Jawaid Akhtar, Additional Chief Secretary (Health and Family Welfare).
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Meanwhile, testing in the State further increased from 2,093 on Monday to 2,773 samples on Tuesday. As the State’s order for one lakh rapid test strips from China was getting delayed due to technical issues, a new order for two lakh strips has been placed with two other firms. “We are expecting delivery of 80,000 strips in a day or two,” he said.