Five more COVID-19 cases in Jharkhand, count rises to 38

Ranchi/Dhanbad, Apr 19 () Five more people have tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours in Jharkhand, taking the total number of cases in the state to38, officials said on Sunday.

Three people have tested positive in Ranchi district while one person each tested positive in Dhanbad and Simdega districts, they said.

According to Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), Ranchi, Director D K Singh four samples have tested positive.

The officials said that while three people are from different places in Ranchi district, one hails from Simdega district.

A news report quoting Dhanbad Deputy Commissioner Amit Kumar said the samples of a railway trackman working with the East Central Railways tested positive for the disease on Saturday.

The man, a resident of a Railway Colony in Hirapur area, was being treated at the Divisional Railway Hospital here for fever, he said.

He had visited his in-laws' house at Chas in neighbouring Bokaro district to meet his pregnant wife and returned to Dhanbad on a bicycle on March 26. He complained of fever the next day, health officials said.

The first positive case in Dhanbad district was reported in Kumardhubi in Gyarahkhund block near the West Bengal border on April 8.

The total number of cases in the state was 38, which includes two deaths, one each in Ranchi and Bokaro districts, an official said.

Ranchi district has the maximum number of COVID-19 cases at 21, followed by Bokaro (9), Hazaribagh, Simdega and Dhanbad (two each) and one each in Koderma and Giridih districts. COR PVR RG KJ