An eight-month-old baby who travelled died hours after he was tested positive for coronavirus, officials said on Tuesday. He had travelled around 400 km from Arunachal Pradesh to Meghalaya via Assam for treatment. The baby boy was referred to the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS) in Shillong from Arunachal Pradesh’s Tomo Riba Institute of Health and Medical Sciences for treatment of some ailment, they said.
His parents brought him all the way to Shillong by road. They arrived at the hospital in the early hours of Monday.
“On their arrival, the swab samples of the baby were collected and sent for tests. The baby boy tested positive for COVID-19 and later died in the evening,” Meghalaya Health Minister A L Hek said.
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Both of his parents and their driver, however, tested negative for the disease, the minister said.
According to the officials, the baby is the second COVID-19 patient to die in Meghalaya, officials said. The first death in the state was recorded on April 15. So far, the state has reported 89 COVID-19 cases. Of them, 44 are undergoing treatment and 43 have recovered, besides the two deaths. Of the active cases, 22 were detected at the BSF headquarters here.
Meanwhile, India’s COVID-19 tally raced past the seven lakh-mark with 22,252 fresh infections on Tuesday, five days after crossing the six lakh post, while the death toll climbed to 20,160 as 467 more people succumbed to the disease, according to the Union health ministry.
With this, the country has recorded over 20,000 cases of the infection for the fifth consecutive day. India’s coronavirus infection caseload stands at 7,19,665, the ministry’s data updated at 8 am showed.
With a steady rise, the number of recoveries stands at 4,39,947, while there are 2,59,557 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country.
