New Delhi, March 22, 2020: Two coronavirus deaths were reported from Maharashtra’s Mumbai and Bihar on March 22, taking the total number of deaths linked to COVID-19 in India to six.

In Bihar, a 38-year-old man who had recently traveled to Qatar died of renal failure at Patna’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences. He had tested positive for coronavirus, Bihar Health Secretary Sanjay Kumar said.

This is the first case of highly contagious COVID-19 reported from the eastern Indian state. He is probably the youngest person in the country to die due after contracting the infection.

In Maharashtra, the state that has reported maximum coronavirus cases across India (74), a 63-year-old man admitted to a private hospital in Mumbai died in the morning. “The patient had a chronic history of diabetes, high blood pressure and ischemic heart disease,” Mumbai’s civic body, the Brihamumbai Municipal Corporation, said in a statement. He developed acute respiratory distress syndrome leading to his death.

This is the second death in Mumbai linked to coronavirus, which originated in China and has spread to over 140 countries. Three deaths have been reported from Delhi, Punjab and Karnataka this month. All of these patients were above 60.

Ten more positive cases have been reported in the last 24 hours in Maharashtra, according to the state government. Of these, six are in Mumbai and four are in Pune.

More than 300 active coronavirus cases were reported across India, officials said on March 22 as millions of Indians observed a 14-hour self-quarantine or “Janata Curfew” called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Worldwide, over 13,000 people have died, nearly 300,000 have got infected due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases. The COVID-19 is a new strain that was discovered last year in China’s Wuhan and has not been previously identified in humans. Coronaviruses are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people.

Source: ndtv.com