1-yr-old girl, 5 cops among 66 COVID-19 patients in Bihar, cases rise to 1145

A one-year-old girl and five police personnel were among 66 people who tested positive for COVID 19 in Bihar on Saturday, taking the number of cases to 1,145 in the state, a top official said.

According to Principal Secretary, Health, Sanjay Kumar, the baby is from Jehanabad. She had been at a quarantine centre since May 14 when her mother tested positive for the disease, civil surgeon Vijay Kumar Sinha said.

Five police personnel, including a woman in her late 20s, tested positive in Nawada district, which accounted for nine cases, the principal secretary said. Nawada Superintendent of Police Hari Prasad said the woman hailed from Bhojpur district and recently joined duty at the Bundelkhand police station. All personnel deployed at the police station, including the station house officer, have been quarantined.

Purnea district reported the maximum number of 15 cases in a day, all of them migrant workers stationed at a quarantine centre in Rupauli block, the principal secretary said. District Magistrate Rahul Kumar said 11 of these migrants were among 55 people who returned to the north Bihar town from Azadpur in Delhi on a truck earlier this month. Previously, 10 other people who came by the truck had tested positive for the disease. Four others patients had returned from Haryana.

Six people, including a three-year-old boy, tested positive in Madhubani district, the principal secretary said. According to a release issued by the Madhubani administration, one of the patients aged 25 years had returned from Ahmedabad and he had been staying at the Rupauli quarantine centre in Purnea while the remaining five were residents of Rahika and Rajnagar blocks.

Eight people tested positive in Gopalganj while Begusarai reported seven fresh cases. Four people tested positive in Bhagalpur district – all of them residents of different villages falling under Kahalgaon sub-division. Sub divisional hospital’s superintendent Lakhan Murmu said all the four are migrant workers of whom three had come from Delhi and one from Hyderabad.

Munger, the state's worst affected district, reported two cases, taking the number of cases to 125. Muzaffarpur, Aurangabad, Katihar and Khagaria districts also reported two cases each. Three cases were reported from Vaishali and one each from East Champaran, Sheohar and Nalanda, the principal secretary added.

The state has so far reported seven COVID-19 deaths – two from Patna and one each from Munger, Vaishali, East Champaran, Sitamarhi and Rohtas. Altogether, 453 people COVID-19 patients have been discharged after recovery across the state. The badly affected districts also include Patna with 105 cases, Rohtas (77), Nalanda (68), Buxar (59), Begusarai (54), Siwan and Khagaria (43 each).

Only four districts – Gaya, Sitamarhi, Araria and Sheohar - have their tallies in single digit. Gaya has been classified among red zone districts by the state government in view of its “high risk” potential as the town happens to be a renowned pilgrimage spot for Hindus and Buddhists and attracts visitors from far and wide.

More than half of the state’s total number of cases have been reported in the past fortnight and the spike has been mainly attributed to the heavy influx of migrants who are returning by “Shramik Special” trains besides other modes of transport. State health department said random sampling has been done of 9,023 migrants during the period and 427 of them have tested positive. Total number of tests conducted so far is 44,340 and the state is making efforts to improve its daily average from 1,800 samples to 10,000.