108 new cases put active tally over 1,000

The number of active COVID-19 cases in the State crossed the 1,000 mark when 108 new cases were confirmed on Saturday.

The State now has 1,029 active cases, while the total case tally stands at 1,805. Fifty more patients were put on the recovery list on Saturday, taking the total number of recovered patients to 762.

Of the 108 new cases, 98 are imported cases diagnosed in people who had returned to the State from abroad and from other parts of the country. Ten persons acquired the infection following local transmission, through contact with other infected persons.

Death toll 15

A 61-year-old patient, a Mumbai-returnee, who had been seriously ill at Manjeri Medical College Hospital (MCH), Malappuram, and was the first recipient of the convalescent plasma therapy for COVID-19 patients in the State died on Saturday, taking the death toll to 15.

Senior health officials said that since no hospitals in Kerala had been chosen to be part of the PLACID clinical trial of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the State had to draw up guidelines for administering convalescent plasma therapy on compassionate grounds or when there were no other treatment options left for the patient.

The institutional ethical committee clearance for administering the therapy was given late last night and the plasma collected from two prior patients at the Manjeri MCH itself was administered to the patient in the early hours on Saturday.

Doctors said the patient was on ventilator and had gone far too over for him to be saved.

The number of people in institutional or home quarantine in the State is 1,81,482, while another 1,615 persons with suspected COVID-19 symptoms have been isolated in hospitals.

The total number of samples tested so far by the State, including 5,510 repeat samples, is 1,07,796.

Ten new regions in Palakkad, Kollam and Kozhikode entered the hotspots list. The total number of hotspots has gone up to 138 now.

Source link