Bihar CM Nitish Kumar targets total Covid elimination; orders tracking of contact chains

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday directed officials to carry out complete sanitization of COVID-19 hotspots and their adjoining areas as part of measures to contain the spread of coronavirus in the state. The contact chain of COVID-19 patients needs to be identified at the earliest in order to ensure prompt sample collection and testing, Kumar said in a release.

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The Chief Minister, who held a review meeting with Chief Secretary Deepak Kumar and other senior officials, stressed on the need for an action plan for districts from where positive cases are being reported. He said contact tracing, sample collection and testing should be carried out with advance planning so that resources can be efficiently utilised.

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As many as 28 people tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Saturday, raising the total number of cases so far in the state to 251, a top official said

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Bihar to begin plasma therapy

In a major development on Saturday, Sanjay Kumar, principal health secretary of Bihar, has told news agency ANI that the Nitish Kumar led government is planning for plasma therapy at AIIMS Patna. Plasma Therapy involves transfusion of blood from an individual who has recovered from Coronavirus to a patient battling the virus, assuming that the blood of the recovered person might have developed antibodies to fight the virus. Even though plasma therapy has not been recognised as a concrete treatment for the deadly virus, the therapy has shown effective results. ICMR had first allowed Kerala to carry out therapy results and then Delhi where a 49-year-old male had shown positive results after receiving the treatment and was weaned off ventilator support.

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