With the rapid increase in count the number has touched 61 with fourteen more tested positive for the novel coronavirus—eight in Kerala and three each in Karnataka and Pune. Out of the 61cases, 50 had been confirmed reveals The Union health ministry.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that 1,116 people are under observation in the state with149 in isolation wards of various hospitals and rest 967 people are under home quarantine. The fresh cases include friends and relatives of an Italy-returned couple and their son who were tested positive on Saturday along with two relatives who were staying with them at their home reveals Health Minister KK Shailaja. The aged parents of the couple are among the latest positive cases.

New cases take the total in Karnataka to four, says Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa. A software engineer who had returned from the US on March 1, had become the Karnataka’s first patient in the State on Monday. A day after, on Tuesday, his wife and daughter were tested positive. Another person, who had travelled from the US via London and arrived in Bengaluru on Sunday, is the fourth case.

In Jaipur, meanwhile, a combination of second-order HIV drugs lopinavir and ritonavir was used upon an elderly Italian couple who are undergoing treatment. It was approved “restricted use” of these drugs by The Drug Controller General of India, following couple's consent. The usage of these drugs is pertinent in clinical trials in China and Thailand in treating patients.