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Updated: Mar 14, 2020 12:08 IST

Even as India reported one more case of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) on Saturday morning, taking the total number of people infected with the viral disease to 83, seven more people have been cured of the disease and discharged from various hospitals across India.

The total number of patients who have been cured in India is now 10.

Of the seven recently cured cases of Covid-19, five are from Uttar Pradesh, and one each from Rajasthan and Delhi.

“These were Covid-19 positive cases whose final test results came negative for the presence of SARS-cov-2 virus. As per the protocol, any person who has tested positive for the disease needs to be managed in hospital isolation for a particular period. The tests are repeated on day 14 to check for the presence of virus. If it returns negative then another test is to be repeated within a gap of 24 hours, and if that result also comes in negative than the patient is declared to be disease free,” said a senior health ministry official dealing with the outbreak in India.

“Since these patients have been discharged it means all their test results were negative, and they can be labelled as disease free,” the official added.

Read: Fast-tracked and extensive testing key to coronavirus containment

Last month, three initial positive cases from Kerala had been declared as disease free and discharged from hospitals. There is no report of recurrence of infection in the discharged cases.

Meanwhile, India has tested 6500 samples since January 17 this year for Covid-19. Out of all the samples tested 83 have returned positive. The new case reported on Saturday is from Uttar Pradesh.

Two people have died of the disease so far in India, and according to the ministry of health both the cases had underlying medical conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, asthma etc. that aggravated their condition.

The infection in India so far has been mild, and apart from two patients admitted in Jaipur, the rest did not require the anti-HIV/Aids drug that has been permitted under ‘restricted use’ to manage unstable Covid-19 cases.

Also read: How short-term misanthropy works better than drugs amid an outbreak