3-year to 80-year-old among 473 COVID-19 patients in AP

Amaravati, Apr 14 (): The oldest person to testpositive for coronavirus in Andhra Pradesh was an 80-year-oldwoman from Guntur, while the youngest were two three-year-oldgirls, one from Kurnool and another from East Godavaridistrict.

Of the total 473 COVID-19 cases registered in the statefrom March 12 to April 14, 125 were female and the rest male.

And 31 of those afflicted were under the age of 15 years,data released by the Andhra Pradesh government here on Tuesdayrevealed.

Among the children, there were two each of three, fiveand seven years, three each of eight and six years, a nine-year-old and six were 10-year-old.

Of the 31 under-15 children, 19 were girls.

The state government released some data on the insistenceof the from the Centre, official sources said.

The government data revealed that among the 473 cases, 13foreign returnees contracted COVID-19 and 12 of their contactsgot afflicted through human-to-human transmission.

Another 32 cases were due to other reasons.

The balance cases were either Tablighi Jamaatcongregation attendees or their contacts.

According to the state government numbers, 10,505 bloodsamples were tested till date of which 10,032 turned negative.

On Monday, the seven Viral Research and DiagnosticLaboratories (VRDL) opened by the state set a record byconducting 2,010 blood tests in 24 hours.

The seven labs have a total capacity to test 990 samplesper day.

The government volunteers and health workers completedtwo rounds of house-to-house survey, covering 1. 31 crore ofthe total 1.46 crore households to identify prospectiveCOVID-19 patients.

In the third round of survey, 1.45 crore houses werecovered and 22,272 symptomatic cases were identified.

Of these, 6,509 people were kept in home quarantine andanother eight in institutional quarantine, the government datasaid.

Another 243 samples were sent for further testing.While the government opened 338 quarantine centres across thestate, 5,864 people were accommodated in them.

The government also opened one state-level COVID-19hospital each in Chittoor, Krishna, Nellore and Visakhapatnam,but they have not yet been readied to their full capacity.

While the government provisioned for 444 ventilators inthese four hospitals, only 335 are available now, with 332(out of 444) ICU beds.

Another 310 beds are to be added to the planned 1680in non-ICU rooms in these hospitals.

In the 13 district-level Covid hospitals, only half ofthe 445 provisioned ventilators could be put in place while2,292 more beds need to be added in the non-ICU rooms, thegovernment data said.

It also said 4,799 doctors and 16,481 paramedical andnursing staff were rendering COVID-related services ingovernment hospitals in the 13 districts, with the highest2,771 doctors and 9,624 paramedical and nursing staff inVisakhapatnam district alone. DBV APRRAVINDRANATH APRRAVINDRANATH