Indian legislator dies with Covid-19

A prominent politician in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, who tested positive for coronavirus infection, died in a hospital in Chennai this morning, becoming India's first sitting legislator to fall victim to the contagion.

J Anbazhagan, 61, a lawmaker of the state's main opposition party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), had been admitted to hospital on June 2 with "severe acute respiratory distress" and tested positive for Covid-19, reports our New Delhi correspondent.

Anbazghagan, who had chronic kidney disease, was put on ventilator support on June 3 when his breathing trouble worsened. His condition deteriorated on Monday evening.

"In spite of full medical support, including mechanical ventilation at our COVID-19 facility, Anbazhagan succumbed to his illness," said a statement released by Dr Rela Institute and Medical Centre.

DMK President M K Stalin condoled Anbazhagan's death and paid rich tributes to him.

Anbazhagan is the first major political leader to die of coronavirus in Tamil Nadu.

Tamil Nadu is the second worst-affected Indian state in the country after Maharashtra with 34,914 Covid-19 cases reported till Tuesday. These include 16,282 active cases and 307 deaths from the virus.

Meanwhile, India's coronavirus positive cases tally rose to 2,76,583 today with the addition of 9,985 new patients in the last 24 hours as the number of those who have recovered overtook the active Covid-19 cases in the country for the first time.

A total of 1,35,206 patients have recovered so far and nearly 1.33 lakh are still taking treatment for the disease, our correspondent reports.

Of the total cases reported since the beginning of the pandemic, 7,745 patients have died, 279 of them in the last 24 hours.

India is placed fifth in the world in terms of coronavirus cases after the US, Brazil, Russia and the UK.

Maharashtra, the country's worst-hit coronavirus hotspot, has 90,000 cases, ahead of the 84,000-plus cases in China where the pandemic originated in Wuhan city in December.

Mumbai, India's financial capital, went past 51,000 coronavirus cases on Tuesday - around 700 more than China's Wuhan.