IT Correspondent
Mumbai, May 25:
Maharashtra PWD minister and former chief minister Ashok Chavan has tested positive for coronavirus. Chavan has been admitted at a hospital in his home town in Nanded in Marathwada region.
He contracted the infection a few days back and was reportedly under home quarantine. Now his condition has been described as stable. He has been travelling between Mumbai and Nanded frequently. As of now 06 persons have died and 128 tested positive in Nanded, while overall Marathwada figures stand as – 1744 positive with 61 deaths.
Earlier, NCP leader and Housing Minister Jitendra Awhad had tested positive for coronavirus. He recovered after remaining admitted in a hospital in Mumbai for more than two weeks.
On Sunday, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had said the fight against the novel coronavirus is going to be tougher now as the state’s case tally mounts and assured people that the government is prepared with extra health facilities to deal with any emerging situation out of this virus outbreak.
“We are adding to our healthcare capacity – field hospitals are being set up, ICU beds are being added and together we have 7,000 beds, “ Uddhav Thackeray said. “We will have 14,000 beds by next month. We have learnt that more than ventilators, patients needed oxygen support. So we are increasing beds with oxygen facility in field hospitals,” he added.
With a biggest-ever-hike of 3,041 new positive cases in the last 24 hours, the total number of infected persons in Maharashtra crossed 50,000-mark on Sunday. Of total 50,231 confirmed cases, 33,988 are active, according to the State Health Department.
The death toll has risen to 1,635 after 58 more people succumbed to the deadly disease, while a total of 1,196 people were also discharged on Sunday, taking the number of cured and discharged patients to 14,600.
Overall in India, 6,767 new positive cases were detected in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of Covid-19 patients to 1,31,868, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
India is currently under the fourth phase nationwide lockdown that has been imposed as a precautionary measure to contain the virus spread in the last week of March. The lockdown has been further extended till May 31 with certain relaxations in the rules.
