Bihar’s Backward and Extremely Backward Classes Welfare Minister Vinod Kumar Singh and his wife tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday and were admitted to an isolation ward at a city hospital, Katihar District Magistrate Kanwal Tanuj confirmed. Contact tracing and testing is being conducted, he told local journalists.
The Minister is a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from Pranpur Assembly constituency in north Bihar’s Katihar district. He had returned to Katihar on Sunday from Patna. He is the first Minister of Nitish Kumar-led National Democratic Alliance government in Bihar to test positive for the coronavirus.
The Minister said that when his test was returned positive, he went to the Katihar Medical College and Hospital, and thereafter to the isolation ward set up at a hotel in the town.
Previously, another BJP MLA Jivesh Kumar Mishra, from the Jale Assembly constituency in Darbhanga district, tested positive and was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)-Patna for supervision.
Senior Opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal leader and former Union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh too tested positive for the coronavirus and was admitted to AIIMS.
Recovery rate higher
According to State Health Department officials, the death toll of COVID-19 patients in the State has gone up to 62, with a total of 9,117 cases testing positive. As many as 6,930 patients have recovered so far. A total 1.98 lakh samples have been tested.
Recovery rate of patients in Bihar, at 78%, has been higher than the national average of 58.14%, Health Department officials said.
