Udupi, May 29: As many as 15 fresh coronavirus positive cases were reported in Udupi district today.
11 among the new 15 covid-19 patients are males and four are females. The patients also include two children aged 6 and 7.
All of them are said to be Maharashtra returnees.
With this, the total confirmed covid-19 cases in the district mounted to 164.
Bengaluru, Jul 27: Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka crossed the grim milestone of one lakh Covid-19 cases while Tamil Nadu logged nearly 7,000 fresh infections for the third straight day on Monday as the sharp spike in recent weeks continued unabated in the southern states.
Kerala's tally inched toward the 20,000-mark and Telangana saw the total infection count beach the 55,000-mark while the cumulative cases rose to 2,872 in the tiny union territory of Puducherry as the six together added 20,629 fresh cases and their aggregate shot to 5.02 lakh.
A total of 291 deaths were reported on Monday from these states with Tamil Nadu accounting for the maximum of 77 closely followed by Karnataka with 74 fatalities, according to bulletins issued by respective states.
The cases have been rising in the region since last month when the lockdown norms were eased and thousands of people returned even as testing had been given a push.
The worst-hit was Andhra Pradesh where the Covid-19 count doubled in just eight days as the day's 6,051 cases pushed the tally to 1,02,349. It had crossed the 50,000-mark on July 20.
East Godavari district registered a high of 1,210 cases. After 16,86,446 tests were completed on Monday, the Covid-19 positivity rate in the state shot past the 6 per cent mark, a record high.
From 15,252 confirmed cases on July 1, the number swelled to the current level as every district in the state has been witnessing a severe surge in the pandemic.
The toll rose to 1,090 with 49 fresh deaths. The state now has 51,701 active cases after a total of 49,558 patients had recovered, a bulletin said.
Covid-19 cases in Karnataka spiralled to 1,01,465 as the state reported the biggest single-day spike of 5,324 new infections and 75 fatalities, taking the death toll to 1,953, the health department said.
The day also saw 1,847 patients getting discharged, taking the cumulative recoveries to 37,685.
Tamil Nadu reported highest single-day spike of 6,993 cases, taking the tally to 2,20,716 while 77 deaths propelled the toll to 3,571.
The state has added 45,038 cases since last Monday while the active cases stood at 54,896 and recoveries touched 1,62,249, including 5,723 people discharged today.
Chennai accounted for 95,857 cases of the state's tally.
In Kerala, at least 43 health workers were among the 702 people who tested positive while 745 others recovered, as the state's total infection tally touched 19,727.
The death toll climbed to 63 with two more fatalities from Kozhikode and Kottayam districts, while 9,611 people were presently under treatment, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said.
A total of 10,054 patients have recovered so far and over 1.55 lakh people were under observation, he told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram.
Telangana's total infection count rose to 55,532 with the addition of 1,473 cases, including 506 from Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) areas, a government bulletin said on Monday, providing data as of 8 pm on Sunday.
With eight more deaths, the Covid-19 toll in the state rose to 471. The death rate was 0.85 per cent as against 2.3 per cent in the country, it said.
As many as 42,106 people have recovered from the infection so far, while 12,955 were under treatment.
Puducherry logged 86 new cases, pushing the overall tally to 2,872 and the toll increased to 43 with three more deaths. It has 1,109 active cases, an official statement said.
Bengaluru, Jun 5: The much awaited Southwest Monsoon entered Karnataka with widespread rain in coastal and central regions of the southern state, an official said on Friday. Rain and thundershowers are likely to occur at most places over coastal areas and at a few places over the interior parts over the next 24-48 hours.
"The southwest monsoon entered the state on Thursday as predicted from Kerala and the Arabian Sea, with moderate to heavy rainfall in the coastal districts and central or Malnad region of the state," Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre Director Srinivas Reddy told media here.
Though the monsoon has set in on time in the state, Reddy said its progress was likely to be slow in the next three days, as cyclone Nisarga induced high-speed winds took away rain-bearing clouds from the southern peninsula.
According to the regional meteorological office, Karwar in Uttar Kannada district received a whopping 15cm rainfall on Thursday, followed by 11cm each at Kundapur in Udupi district and Shivamogga in Malnad region.
Kadra and Gersoppa in Uttara Kannada and Kottigehara in Chikkamagaluru district had 10cm rainfall, followed by 8cm at Virajpet in Kodagu district and 7cm each at Shirali and Gokarana in Uttara Kannda.
Isolated to scattered rainfall also occurred in many places across the north and south interior regions of the state.
"The monsoon will advance in the state to south and north interior areas after June 8 as there is lull in its movement due to lack of rain-bearing clouds and winds to carry them," said Reddy.
Noting that the four-month monsoon from June to September, crucial to the rain-dependent state would be normal this year, Reddy said its progress and spread, however, would depend on various factors like cloud formations and wind movements.
"Conditions are likely to become favourable for monsoon advancement in the state over the next 2-3 days," asserted Reddy.
Washington, Jun 30: Researchers in China have discovered a new type of swine flu that is capable of triggering a pandemic, according to a study published Monday in the US science journal PNAS.
Named G4, it is genetically descended from the H1N1 strain that caused a pandemic in 2009.
It possesses "all the essential hallmarks of being highly adapted to infect humans," say the authors, scientists at Chinese universities and China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The researchers then carried out various experiments including on ferrets, which are widely used in flu studies because they experience similar symptoms to humans -- principally fever, coughing and sneezing.
G4 was observed to be highly infectious, replicating in human cells and causing more serious symptoms in ferrets than other viruses.
Tests also showed that any immunity humans gain from exposure to seasonal flu does not provide protection from G4.
According to blood tests which showed up antibodies created by exposure to the virus, 10.4 percent of swine workers had already been infected.
The tests showed that as many as 4.4 percent of the general population also appeared to have been exposed.
The virus has therefore already passed from animals to humans but there is no evidence yet that it can be passed from human to human -- the scientists' main worry.
"It is of concern that human infection of G4 virus will further human adaptation and increase the risk of a human pandemic," the researchers wrote.
The authors called for urgent measures to monitor people working with pigs.
"The work comes as a salutary reminder that we are constantly at risk of new emergence of zoonotic pathogens and that farmed animals, with which humans have greater contact than with wildlife, may act as the source for important pandemic viruses," said James Wood, head of the department of veterinary medicine at Cambridge University.
A zoonotic infection is caused by a pathogen that has jumped from a non-human animal into a human.
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