The 24-year-old software professional who tested positive for COVID-19 in Hyderabad on Monday worked for a Bengaluru-based company. He had travelled by an Indigo flight from Dubai to Bengaluru on February 20 and had worked with 13 colleagues in the Bengaluru office before coming to Hyderabad by bus on February 22.
This has sent the Health departments of both Telangana and Karnataka on an overdrive to identify all the people who came in contact with him since the night of February 20.
In Telangana, the Health Department officials have constituted a 20-member team of doctors and para-medics under the supervision of the District Medical and Health Officer, Hyderabad, to treat the patient and eight of his family members. The Health Department is trying to zero in on all the 27 passengers who had travelled by GO Tour Travels and Holidays AC sleeper bus on February 22. The bus had left Bengaluru at 9 p.m. and reached Secunderabad at 7.15 a.m the next day.
In Karnataka, the Health Department has taken up a surveillance measures on a war-footing to trace and identify passengers who travelled with the techie in the bus.
“We are trying to find out how many passengers from Bengaluru were on the bus. We are trying to track his movement from the time he arrived in Bengaluru and all those who came in contact with him during the stay in the city. All of them will be home isolated for the next 15 days,” said Karnataka State Joint Director (Communicable Diseases), B.G. Prakash Kumar.
The management of the travel agency had shared the list of passengers of the bus with the Health Department in Telangana and based on the contact numbers available on the list, the officials are now trying to get in touch with each of the passengers.
This apart, 42 persons in Apollo Hospital, Secunderabad, are said to have come into contact with the techie, who came for a health check on February 23. “For the next three days, he had frequented the hospital till his report for testing of Swine Flu came negative. But, doctors advised him to go to Gandhi Hospital for further tests,” an official said.
Now, the 42 staff members, including doctors, paramedical staff and front office personnel of the hospital are being asked to undergo all relevant tests, he added.
