A 62-year-old doctor from Indore, Madhya Pradesh, died of COVID-19 on Thursday morning while undergoing treatment at a hospital, taking the toll owing to the illness to 22 in the city.
“We received the news this morning that one of our doctor friends has also died,” confirmed Indore Chief Medical and Health Officer Pravin Jadia.
Also read: Fatality rate in Indore surpasses that of New Delhi, Mumbai
The doctor, a general physician, had tested positive for the disease on Wednesday, said Rahul Rokade of the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College, Indore. “Days ago, he was admitted to the CHL hospital, and later shifted to another hospital,” he added. Details of comorbidities, if any, are awaited.
The doctor had been running two clinics for the past 40 years in the city, said a representative of a pharmaceutical firm. “Recently a family whose member tested positive for the disease later had visited him for consultation,” she said.
He was not involved in the continuing efforts of the government to tackle the outbreak in the city.
Also read: IAS officer tasked with procuring drugs, equipment in Madhya Pradesh tests positive
Offering condolences, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan wrote on Twitter: “We pray that the soul of the doctor rests in peace. He was sacrificed while protecting invaluable lives of others and fighting the battle against COVID-19. Superhumans like you can never be forgotten.”
In Indore, which has so far recorded 213 cases, the disease has infected two other doctors and a male nurse, who had become the first patient in the city to be cured of the illness.
With the death, the case fatality rate in Indore climbed to 10.3% on Thursday from 8.6% on Tuesday, remaining the highest for any city in the country. The rate is a measure of disease severity which records the proportion of those who die from a disease among all those diagnosed with it over a certain period of time.
