Kempaiah's 'fake' caste certificate issue reaches HC

Bengaluru, July 25: A 105-year-old person from Bengaluru’s Basaveshwar Nagar, who was under treatment for covid-19 at a hospital for past five days, breathed his last today. He was a former government account who retired in 1973. He was the oldest known covid-19 patient in the state so far.

Many members of the patient's family are said to be infected and are hospitalised at various facilities. The funeral will be overseen by two uninfected family members.

The patient 74411 died on Saturday morning at around 9 a.m., said Dr Prasanna, Managing Director of Pristine Hospital And Research Centre where the former was admitted.

“The patient was initially doing well when he admitted on July 20. He did not have significant lung changes when he was admitted. However, after three days, his blood pressure started to drop so he was put on oxygen in the ICU. Yesterday morning, with continued deterioration, he was placed on non-invasive ventilator support,” Dr Prasanna said.

“Finally, by last night, his oxygen saturation levels began to plummet abruptly and we had to intubate him for ventilator support. His condition continued to deteriorate, however. The cause of death was respiratory failure and the onset of sepsis,” he added.

Although earmarked for supplies of Remdesivir by the government, the hospital did not receive the drugs. An appeal to Dr K Sudhakar, Minister of Medical Education by the hospital staff resulted in an assurance that the medication would arrive. “However, in the end, we had to source the medication ourselves on Friday,” medical staff said.

Dr Thrilok Chandra, Head, Critical Care Support Unit (CCSU), which oversees the care of critical or vulnerable-aged Covid-19 patients, had said that Patient 74411 had been diagnosed early. “He was identified when the disease was still in the early stages in his body. He only had symptoms of Influenza-Like Illness (ILI), so the symptoms were not severe,” Dr Chandra had said.

“It’s very sad. We were rooting for him to pull through. He had no comorbidities at all. He had been bed-ridden from last year, but he was healthy. His only potential comorbidity was his advanced age,” Dr Prasanna said.

According to government data, 34% of Covid-19 fatalities in India are aged between 60 and 74 years of age. Fourteen per cent are aged above 74.

Mysuru, Feb 26: The Pre-University Education Department was taking several measures to prevent paper leaks during the II PU examinations, scheduled to commence from March 4, a statement said on Tuesday.

Among the few measures that the board has chalked out, students would not be allowed to leave the examination hall till the last bell. In case of any emergency, the student could leave the exam hall but s/he would be required to surrender the question paper to authorities in the hall.

This is being done to ensure question papers aren’t circulated during exam hours by those who exit the hall before the last bell.

Bengaluru, Mar 10: With concerns growing by the day, the Karnataka government is readying three more labs to test throat swab samples.

Currently, only two labs in Bengaluru — National Institute of Virology and Virus Research and Diagnostics Laboratory (VRDL) lab attached to Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute — are categorised biosafety level 2+, a requirement for coronavirus tests.

Now, the government is working on upgrading three more labs, one each in the government medical colleges at Hassan, Mysuru and Shivamogga. “The labs will be ready within one week,” the authorities said.

Currently, the labs are testing only throat swab samples of suspected patients and taking 24 hours to give the results. “A patient’s blood sample will be collected only if he or she tests positive for covid-19 infection in the first throat swab sample.

While earlier the state would send all samples of suspected coronavirus cases to NIV, Pune, the two labs were upgraded to biosafety level 2+ in mid-February.