Coronavirus death toll in Karnataka breaches 4,000

Bengaluru: The COVID-19 death toll in Karnataka breached the 4,000 mark on Monday, as the state reported 6,317 new cases and 115 fatalities, taking the total number of infections to 2,33,283, the health department said.

The day also saw recoveries overtaking the number of new positive cases, with 7,071 patients getting discharged.

Out of the 6,317 fresh cases reported on Monday, 2,053 were from Bengaluru urban alone.

As of August 17 evening, cumulatively 2,33,283 Covid-19 positive cases have been confirmed in the state, whichincludes 4,062 deaths and 1,48,562 discharges, the health department said in its bulletin. It said that out of 80,643 active cases, 79,948 patients are in isolation at designated hospitals and are stable, while 695 are in Intensive Care Units.

Thirty nine out of 115 deaths reported on Monday were from Bengaluru urban,followed by Belagavi and Hassan (9 each), Dakshina Kannada (8), Kalaburagi (7), Ballari (6), Dharwad and Mysuru (5 each), Haveri, Koppal and Shivamogga (4 each), Raichur and Vijayapura (3 each), Chikkamagaluru and Tumakuru (2 each), and Bagalkote, Kodagu, Mandya, Udupi and Uttara Kannada (1 each). Contacts of most of the deaths reported today are still under tracing.

Among the districts where the new cases were reported, Bengaluru urban accounted for 2,053, Mysuru 597, Shivamogga 397, Ballari 319, Udupi 268, Hassan 250, Dharwad 201, followed by others. Bengaluru urban district topped the list of positive cases, with 91,864 infections, followed by Ballari 14,507 and Mysuru 11,132.

Among discharges too Bengaluru urban was on top with 55,972 discharges, followed by Ballari 8,554 and Kalaburagi 6,885, the bulletin said.

A total of 20,75,086 samples have been tested so far, out of which 37,700 were on Monday alone. Among the samples tested today, 14,489 were Rapid Antigen Tests.

Manipal Hospitals on Monday launched a plasma bank in the city for advanced treatment of COVID 19 patients and urged those who had recovered from coronavirus to come forward as donors.

"The key objective of this drive is to make plasma therapy readily accessible to all COVID 19 patients seeking treatment in Manipal Hospitals and registered through AMBER HEALTH," the hospital said in a statement. It appealed to all coronavirus recovered patients to come forward to help those in need to win the battle against the pandemic.

Dr C Shivaram, Head-Transfusion Medicine, Manipal Hospitals, said plasma therapy has turned out to be the shield of defence that can fight COVID and is a good supplement to treatment modalities in use. He said a patient must be free from COVID 19 symptoms for at least 14 days to qualify as a plasma donor. "Patients need not worry about their antibodies during donation as we collect only a small portion of the antibodies. Additionally, in case of re-infection by the COVID virus, the body can make antibodies very quickly within hours,because of the memory White cells (B cells) in the blood," Dr Shivaram said. PTI