Two Coronavirus patients die in Pune; district toll rises to 20

The coronavirus death toll in Pune rose to 20 on Thursday after two more patients succumbed tothe disease in the Maharashtra district, officials said. A 60-year-old coronavirus patient from Baramati town died at the state-run Sassoon Hospital late Wednesday night,zilla parishad chief executive officer Ayush Prasad said.

The man was suffering from diabetes and paralysis, hesaid, adding that four members of his family also tested positive for coronavirus earlier.

One more person died of coronavirus in Pune late Wednesday night, Mayor Murlidhar Mohol said.

The details of the second deceased were awaited.

On Wednesday, 10 deaths were reported from Pune district.

CM urges people to visit only Covid-19 designated centres

Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and Health Minister Rajesh Tope on Wednesday urged people to visit only the designated centres of Covid-19 patients as per clinical criteria divided into three different categories.

The categories are: asymptomatic positive patients or suspects, symptomatic positive patients, and serious cases requiring advanced health management.

State authorities also made wearing of facial masks compulsory for Mumbai and Pune metropolitan regions with immediate effect until further orders to check the spread of Covid-19 in these two worst hotspots in the country.

Pune company develops rapid diagnostic kits for COVID-19

A two-year old Pune-based start-up, funded by the Department of Science & Technology (DST), has developed rapid diagnostic kits for screening of COVID-19, an official said here on Wednesday.

Founded in 2018 by doctor Preeti N. Joshi, Fast Sense Diagnostics is currently developing two modules for detecting Covid-19 as the pandemic grips Maharashtra in a big way.

"The major challenges of testing for COVID-19 are speed, cost, accuracy and accessibility at the point-of-care or use. Several startups have developed rather creative and innovative ways to address these needs. DST is supporting the most promising of these to facilitate their development to the commercialisation chain if found suitable on the technical grounds," said DST Secretary, Prof Ashutosh Sharma, in a statement.

In the lines of their existing universal platform "Omni-Sens" for early detection and screening of complex diseases i.e. cancers, liver ailments and neonatal sepsis, the company has proposed a technology CovE-Sens specifically for Covid-19.

A patent has been filed for CovE-Sens which would provide a rapid, point of care detection along with screening and confirmatory test as well with ease of operation.

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