PATNA, June 3 -- The state health department has asked all civil surgeons in districts to be fully prepared to tackle cases of coronavirus, in case of an uptick, as a 100-bed dedicated ward has been put in place for isolating patients with CoV-2 at the Nalanda Medical College Hospital (NMCH) in Patna, with the state capital reporting 21 active cases, said officials on Monday. Two medical students and two nursing staff of Patna's All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) were among those to have tested positive in two rounds of testing at the institute recently. A patient admitted at Paras HMRI hospital was the first to test positive at a private laboratory, when testing for CoV-2 began on May 22. None of the 21 active cases in the state capital warranted hospitalisation, said health officials, requesting anonymity. "Other than exercising caution and following handwash protocol, avoiding going to crowded places and not unnecessarily touching one's eyes or nose, there is nothing to panic," said another official. Bihar's health secretary Manoj Kumar Singh asked civil surgeons (CS) and district programme managers (DPM) to check infrastructure at health facilities in their respective districts in terms of availability of oxygen, functioning of pressure swing adsorption (PSA) oxygen plants, drugs, etc. He passed these instructions during a meeting with CS and DPM through videoconferencing on Monday evening. The NMCH, on the other hand, has requested the Bihar Medical Service Infrastructure Company Limited (BMSICL) to construct an operation theatre (OT) in the prefabricated structure, which has been earmarked as a Covid ward at the hospital. The operation theatre, said officials, will help in caesarian deliveries of Covid-infected patients, without having to take them to the regular OT, and take care of other surgeries. The government emphasised there was no need to panic about CoV-2, but to exercise caution, as the strain of the virus was mild....