Amid coronavirus outbreak, Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope on Wednesday appealed to citizens not to discriminate coronavirus suspects and positive patients.
A woman with history of travel to France and The Netherlands was tested positive for Coronavirus in Pune, taking the state total confirmed cases in Maharashtra to 42, on Wednesday.
After confirmed cases rose to 42, Maharashtra Health Minister said that seven more laboratories will come up across the state for testing suspected novel coronavirus cases. At present, only three labs are operating in the state at Mumbai, Nagpur and Pune where samples of suspected persons are tested. "KEM, JJ Hospital and Haffkine Institute will soon get the testing facilities. Most likely they will commence operations in the next five days," Tope told reporters.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Wednesday has said that a total of 12351 samples from 11461 individuals have been tested for SARS-CoV2 as on March 18. A total of 145 individuals have been confirmed positive for coronavirus, said ICMR.
At 42, Maharashtra has reported the maximum number of Covid-19 cases in the country. The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India has reached 147, including 122 Indians and 24 foreign nationals, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Wednesday. Globally, the virus has infected more than 184,000 people and killed more than 7500, as per the data available on the World Health Organisation website.
