COVID-positive hockey player Mandeep shifted to hospital after oxygen level drop
New Delhi: Indian hockey team forward Mandeep Singh, who tested positive for COVID-19, has been admitted to a hospital in Bengaluru after his blood oxygen level dropped but his condition is stable, the Sports Authority of India (SAI) said on Tuesday.
Mandeep and five other national players -- captain Manpreet Singh, defenders Surender Kumar, Jaskaran Singh, drag-flicker Varun Kumar and goalkeeper Krishan Bahadur Pathak -- tested positive for COVID-19 last week after reaching Bengaluru for the national camp, which starts on August 20.
"During night monitoring of vitals on August 10 (Monday) it was found that Mandeep Singh's blood oxygen level was dropping below normal which indicated that he is moving from mild to moderate severity of COVID," the SAI said in a statement.
"SAI authorities on campus took an immediate decision to shift him to SS Sparsh multispeciality hospital as a precautionary measure. His condition is currently stable," added the statement.
The 25-year-old has played 129 games for India and scored 60 goals so far. He was a part of the gold-winning team at the 2018 Asian Champions Trophy.
According to SAI, the players contracted the disease, in all probability, while travelling to Bengaluru from different parts of the country after a month-long break.
Their vitals are being checked four times everyday, the SAI stated.
More than 22 lakh people have been infected by the virus in India. The country has recorded over 45,000 deaths due to the dreaded infection so far.
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Student found dead in hostel room in IIT Kharagpur
Kolkata (PTI): A 22-year-old M Tech student was found dead in his hostel room in the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, the second such incident reported on the campus within a span of 10 days.
The student, identified as Soham Haldar, was found hanging from the ceiling of his hostel room on Tuesday and he was immediately taken to the institute hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead, an IIT Kharagpur official said.
Haldar, a dual-degree student in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering, was a boarder of the Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya Hall of Residence on the campus.
Police from the Kharagpur Town police station have initiated a probe into the incident as preliminary findings indicated that it could be a case of suicide, though the exact cause of death will be ascertained following the post-mortem examination, the official said.
In a statement, the institute expressed deep grief over the student's death and said a detailed inquiry has been initiated.
The authorities have informed the family and are extending all possible assistance to them, it added.
Director Suman Chakraborty told PTI that the institute will strengthen the mechanism to identify stressed-out and depressed students and take follow-up steps to address their issues.
The grief-stricken parents of the student, who hailed from Barasat in North 24 Parganas district, have come to the campus and the authorities will speak to them, he said.
"Haldar's friends, faculty and staffers also could not gauge any stress or anxiety in him. But we need to enable students suffering from anxiety and extreme stress to open up their minds and do everything needed to prevent such incidents," he said.
Investigators are also scrutinising CCTV footage from the hostel premises to piece together the sequence of events leading to the incident.
The incident comes close on the heels of another student's death reported on April 18, when 21-year-old Jaibir Singh Dodia, a third-year Mechanical Engineering student from Ahmedabad, allegedly died after jumping from the eighth floor of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Hall of Residence. That case is also under investigation.
The back-to-back incidents have once again brought the issue of mental health and student support systems at the institute into focus, especially in view of several such cases reported last year.
