Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai discharged after Covid-19 treatment
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Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and her daughter, Aaradhya, have been discharged from hospital, while her husband Abhishek Bachchan remains warded.
PHOTO: REUTERS
MUMBAI • Bollywood star and former Miss World Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and her daughter have been discharged from a Mumbai hospital where they were being treated for coronavirus, her actor husband Abhishek Bachchan said on Monday.
The pair was admitted to hospital about a week ago, several days after Abhishek and his superstar father Amitabh Bachchan, making them the highest-profile family to contract the virus in India, which has recorded more than 1.4 million cases.
"Aishwarya and Aaradhya have thankfully tested negative and have been discharged from the hospital. They will now be at home," her husband tweeted, thanking fans for "continued prayers and good wishes".
"My father and I remain in hospital under the care of the medical staff," he added.
The 46-year-old actress and her eight-year-old daughter, Aaradhya, were initially quarantined at home before being moved to the same hospital where her 77-year-old father-in-law and his son are being treated for the illness.
Aishwarya won the Miss World crown in 1994, and has become one of Bollywood's most famous faces. She is a regular on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival.
The elder Bachchan and his 44-year-old son Abhishek are both in the isolation ward.
No health update has been issued since they were admitted more than two weeks ago, but Amitabh, an avid social media user, has been dispensing regular messages to his millions of fans on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr.
"I couldn't hold back my tears", he tweeted late on Monday, recounting his reaction to the news that his granddaughter and daughter-in-law could now go home.
A blog entry posted earlier last Saturday touched on the mental trauma and stigma suffered by coronavirus patients, referring to "the stark reality that the Covid patient, put in hospitalised isolation, never gets to see another human".
Recovered patients "are afraid to be in public for fear or apprehension of being treated differently... treated as one that has carried the disease... a pariah syndrome... driving them into deeper depression", he wrote.
Amitabh Bachchan, idolised in India, has worked for more than half a century in the film industry.
Mumbai, India's financial and film capital, has now recorded over 100,000 cases, with more than 6,000 deaths attributed to the virus.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
