Elderly woman dies of COVID-19 in HP; with 10 new cases total tally reaches 214

A 72-year-old woman has died of COVID-19 in Himachal Pradesh taking the death toll to five, while the total number of cases in the state rose to 214 with 10 more people testing positive for the disease, officials said on Monday.

So far, 67 people have been cured of the disease and the number of active cases in the state stood at 142, they said.

Of the 10 fresh COVID-19 cases in the state, four have been reported from Chamba, three from Shimla, two from Kangra and one from Hamirpur. Of them, four each returned from Mumbai and Tamil Nadu while two came back from Ahmedabad.

The four Chamba men had returned from Tamil Nadu recently. Two of them returned on May 18 in a special train from Chennai, the other two came back in a vehicle, a district official said.

The three men of Shimla had returned from Mumbai in a special train on May 18, Shimla Deputy Commissioner Amit Kashyap said, adding they were in institutional quarantine in Deha.

In Hamirpur, a 25-year-old woman tested COVID-19 positive. She had returned to her in-law's house from Mumbai on May 22. Her 29-year-old husband tested COVID-19 positive a few days ago, Deputy Commissioner Harikesh Meena said.

In Kangra, two men, who returned from Ahmedabad, tested COVID-19 positive in Palampur, Kangra Superintendent of Police Vimukt Ranjan said.

Four persons in the district have been cured of the disease, he said, adding that four more people admitted at a COVID-19 care centre at Baijnath tested negative and were being discharged.

Hamirpur has the highest number of active cases in the state at 57 followed by 35 in Kangra, 13 in Una, 11 in Solan, nine in Mandi, seven in Chamba, four in Bilaspur, three in Shimla, two in Sirmaur and one in Kullu, officials said.

The fifth COVID-19 fatality in the state was a 72-year-old woman.

She had tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Saturday and died at the Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC) in Shimla on Sunday night, the hospital's Senior Medical Superintendent Janak Raj said.

The woman, who was suffering from multiple ailments, had been referred to the IGMC from Hamirpur after her condition worsened. Her husband was found coronavirus infected on Thursday, he said, adding the woman had gone to Jalandhar in Punjab for treatment and upon her return was admitted to the government medical college in Hamirpur.

Prior to this, a 52-year-old patient from Hamirpur district died of COVID-19 at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Government Hospital in Mandi on May 15. On May 5, a 21-year-old man from Sarkaghat in Mandi died due to the disease in Shimla.

On April 2, a 70-year-old woman, who was a resident of Delhi and had been staying at a factory's guest house in Solan since March 15, died due to COVID-19 at the PGIMER in Chandigarh. On March 23, a 69-year-old man who had returned from the US died of COVID-19 at the Dr Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College (RPGMC) in Kangra district.