KATHMANDU: The Ministry of Health and Population on Friday stated that one new COVID-19 case has been confirmed in Nepalgunj.

Speaking at a regular press briefing, Ministry’s Spokesperson Dr. Bikash Devkota said that a swabs sample of a 16-year-old youth was tested at the laboratory of Bheri Hospital and the report came positive for coronavirus.

With this, Nepal’s COVID-19 tally has climbed to 102. Out of them, 74 are males and 28 are females.

The town in Province-5 has become one of the hotspots for coronavirus in Nepal. A total of 24 people in Nepalgunj have so far tested positive for the pandemic virus.

The Ministry has deployed a special team led by Nepali Army to collect samples in Nepal’s ‘Covid-19 hotspots Udayapur, Birgunj and Nepalgunj.

The team will collect 500 samples in Udayapur and 1,000 samples each in Birgunj and Nepalgunj.

Over 70,000 tests carried so far

A total of 70,023 people have been tested for coronavirus in Nepal till Friday.

Spokesperson Devkota said that 15,492 were tested through Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and 54,531 through Rapid Diagnostic Test.

A total of 1,459 samples were tested in the past 24 hours, he said, adding that 15,624 are in quarantine and 134 in isolation.

Eight more discharged 

Meanwhile, eight more COVID-19 patients undergoing treatment at Koshi Hospital were discharged today.

They were discharged after their test reports came negative during the second PCR test.

Three days after the discharge of six COVID-19 patients from the COVID-19 Hospital of State-1, eight new patients have been discharged, said Dr. Sangita Mishra, the Medical Superintendant of Koshi Zonal Hospital.

“The two consecutive PCR test of eight patients have tested negative”, shared Dr. Mishra who oversees the newly built 50-bed COVID-19 Special Hospital of Biratnagar.

On Wednesday, six COVID-19 patients were discharged from the only COVID-19 Hospital of Province-1.

Nepal has 102 COVID-19 cases so far and among them, 30 have been discharged.