SHILLONG: Two more COVID-19 patients, including a BSF personnel, died at a hospital here on Sunday as Meghalaya's death toll due to the disease rose to four, officials said.
Both the patients died while undergoing treatment at the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health & Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS) here in the early hours, its director P Bhattacharyya said.
The 45-year-old BSF personnel was referred to the hospital from Tura after he started developing complications while undergoing treatment there, he said.
"He was kept on ventilator since the day he was admitted to the ICU," Bhattacharyya said.
The other patient, a superintendent at the Geological Survey of India (GSI), had come to the hospital for a surgery and later tested positive for COVID-19.
The 35-year-old man was in isolation and when his condition started deteriorating, he was transferred to the COVID-ICU.
"The patient was subsequently found to be non-infected after the reports of two RT-PCR tests came negative," Bhattacharyya said.
However, when his condition deteriorated further, he was put on ventilator.
"He died as a COVID-19 patient with complications as his organs were damaged," Bhattacharyya said.
The infection causes reaction in the body, which affects the liver, kidney, heart etc, he added.
A 69-year-old doctor was the first COVID-19 casualty in the northeastern state.
An eight-month-old baby from Arunachal Pradesh also died at the hospital a few weeks ago after testing positive for COVID-19.
There are 367 active coronavirus cases in Meghalaya at present and 49 patients have recovered from the disease.
A total of 418 cases have been detected in the state so far.
Over 240 BSF personnel have tested positive for the disease in Meghalaya, an official of the border-guarding force said.