Testing scaled up as Bihar set to cross 1-lakh mark

Bihar scaled up the testing to more than 1 lakh even as the Covid-19 positive cases paced fast, close to reach the 1-lakh mark on Thursday. With addition of 3,906 cases, the cumulative tally to 94,459, while the testing in last 24 hours was 1,04,452.

Seeing the spike in cases, the state government has given permission to open plasma bank in Jayaprabha Hospital, Paras HMRI Hospital, Patna, Mahavir Cancer Sansthan and JLNMCH, Bhagalpur.

Chief minister Nitish Kumar had been stressing to increase the testing to 1 lakh per day, which was achieved on Thursday. Fourteen days back (July 31), Bihar was conducting just 22,742 tests in 24 hours.

At least 10 deaths were also reported in past 24 hours pushing the toll to 484. Besides this, nine deaths were reported from NMCH and AIIMS-Patna, said their respective nodal officers.

Patna remains prone to both maximum number of positive cases as well as deaths. With addition of 399 positive cases Thursday, the cumulative cases in the capital rose to 15,381, while the total deaths were 91. The next highest case of 3,855 were reported from Bhagalpur followed by 3,848 in Muzaffarpur.

Briefing mediapersons on Covid-19, health secretary Lokesh Kumar Singh said in past 24 hours 2,439 patients had recovered, while till now 62,507 people had walked with negative report pushing the recovery rate to 66.17%. He said there were 31,467 active patients in the state.

So far Bihar has conducted 13,77,432 tests.

Giving the details of 10 deaths, Singh said while two patients died in Gaya and Rohtas, one each in Begusarai, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, East Champaran, Saran and Vaishali.

Nodal officer, Covid-19, NMCH, Dr Mukul Kumar Singh, said a positive patient aged 65 years and resident of Nalanda passed away on Wednesday of cardiac arrest.

Eight positive patients passed away at AIIMS-Patna, which included retired IAS officer Manoj Kumar Srivastava. Nodal officer, AIIMS-Patna, Dr Sanjeev Kumar, said four patients of Patna, besides equal number of other patients from Bhojpur, Darbhanga, Sitamarhi and Muzaffarpur passed away in past 24 hours. The patients were aged between 56 and 74 years, he said.

Meanwhile, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad visited PMCH, NMCH besides isolation centre set up at Patliputra indoor stadium to take first hand account of facilities provided to the patients.

AIIMS doctors’ strike deferred

The Resident Doctors’ Association (RDA) of AIIMS-Patna has deferred the strike till August 18 on the assurance of director. The RDA had urged the director to resolve the clash of joining terms for senior resident doctors who were yet to complete their residency but had qualified for the position of senior medical officer (SMO) posts in the state health department.

President RDA, Dr Vinay Kumar, said the AIIMS director has sought six days to cancel the notification that led to the controversy besides including resident doctors also in the ₹50-lakh insurance coverage, as proposed by the Bihar government. “Bihar health minister Mangal Pandey has also assured that our demand will be fulfilled,” he said.

District-wise details

Patna reported 399 cases, followed by East Champaran 220, Katihar 200, Begusarai 197, Gaya 179, Saharsa 175, Araria 163, Madhubani 159, Sitamarhi 133, Purnia 130, Jehanabad 127, Buxar 118, Darbhanga 108, Kaimur 103, Saran 98, Rohtas 94, Muzaffarpur 88, Khagaria 86, West Champaran 79, Bhojpur 72, Aurangabad 67, Bhagalpur 66, 64 each in Arwal, Samastipur and Supaul, 62 each in Madhepura and Sheikhpura, Munger 55, 54 each in Gopalganj and Siwan, Kishanganj 51, Vaishali 50, Lakhisarai 49, 37 each in Nalanda and Nawada, Sheohar 24, Banka 23, Jamui 18, 1 each in Chandauli (sample collected in Patna), Dispur (sample collected in Patna), North Dimajpur (sample collected in Purnia), Ranchi (sample collected in Patna).