Two more deaths have been reported in the State on Thursday taking the total toll to 35. The first ever plasma therapy trial done on a 60-year-old critical male patient did not yield the desired results, as he died 48 hours after the therapy at Victoria Hospital.
The patient, a resident of Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh, was admitted to Victoria Hospital with severe pneumonia and respiratory distress. He had hypotension and uncontrolled diabetes. He underwent plasma therapy on Monday night and passed away due to cardiac arrest on Thursday.
However, Primary and Secondary Education Minister S. Suresh Kumar said it was too early to conclude the trials was a “failure”. “He was on a ventilator and plasma therapy and there was an attempt to save him in the last stages. The result is not a comment on plasma therapy as it was a last-minute effort. This is a trial and once we experiment with more people, its effectiveness can be assessed,” he said. Apart from the patient, a 80-year-old resident of Dakshina Kannada, who was admitted at a private hospital following a stroke and later to a designated hospital died of septic shock.
Meanwhile, 28 new cases have been reported on Thursday taking the total number of cases to 987. The new cases include seven from Bidar, five each from Bengaluru Urban and Mandya, four from Gadag, three from Davangere, two from Kalaburagi, and one each from Belagavi and Bagalkote.
While all cases from Mandya, Belagavi and one case from Bidar have a travel history to Mumbai, Maharashtra; all cases from Gadag have a travel history to Ahmedabad. The rest are all contacts or from containment zones, said the Minister.
In Bengaluru, all the five are from Padarayanapura. Three of these are minors including an eight-year-old boy and two 10-year-old boys. All are contacts of previous positive patients.
With 460 discharges, the State now has only 491 active cases. While the condition of 482 is stable, nine are in the ICU.
Mysuru district, which had emerged as a cluster hotspot, has done well in terms of recovery. Of the 90 patients there, 88 have been discharged. “This district has done a marvellous job with good team work and needs our applause,” the Minister said.
The exemption of institutional quarantine extended to four categories - pregnant women, children aged below ten years, senior citizens above 80 years and terminally ill patients - from among international travellers has also been extended domestic travellers, the Minister added.