Kathmandu, May 17

Fourteen more people tested positive for coronavirus today, including a 25-year-old man from Banke who succumbed to the disease today. The total number of COVID-19 patients in Nepal has gone up to 295. Of these two have died and 36 have recovered.

Ten men tested positive for the disease from Rautahat district. Among them seven are aged   18, 32, 36, 39, 39, 42, and 48  years and are from Farhadawa, Ward No 9 of Rajpur Municipality, while three are aged 28, 30, and 33 and hail from Wards No 3 and 5 of Ishnath Municipality. The Ministry of Health and Population stated that health condition of all the 10 patients was stable. Their swab samples were tested using polymerase chain reaction method in the National Public Health Laboratory in Kathmandu.

All the 10 men had returned from India. They had been working in Mumbai (Maharashtra) and Gujarat. With the new infections, 13 people from Rautahat district have tested positive for COVID-19.

The authorities concerned had intercepted them on Thursday on the Nepal-India border, which has been sealed for nearly two months.

They were sent to quarantine centres at Ishanath, Paroha and Rajpur. Their swab samples were collected on Friday.

Later in the evening, three more people tested positive for the virus — a 34-year-old woman from Dhankuta and a man aged 36 and a woman, 29, from Morang in Biratnagar. Their swab samples were tested using PCR method in BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences.

Nepal registered its first death due to the coronavirus pandemic yesterday. The 29-year-old post-partum woman from Sindhupalchowk district died at Dhulikhel Hospital.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on May 18, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.