Five persons, including two women from Pathanamthitta in Kerala, tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday, taking the total number of confirmed cases across the country to 39.
Kerala Health Minister K.K. Shailaja said the State had been put on high alert in the wake of the new cases. The Minister added that all the passengers who travelled with the infected family on the Venice-Doha Qatar airlines QR 126 flight on February 29 and the Qatar Airlines flight QR514 from Doha to Kochi on March 1 should get in touch with health authorities.
Official sources said three of the infected persons — a couple in their 50s and their 22-year old son — had reached the Kochi international airport from Venice via Doha.
All three, who were reportedly having mild fever, failed to inform the airport authorities or the Health Department officials that they were coming from COVID-affected Italy.
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They were received at the airport by a few relatives from Kottayam, and reached their village of Aythala in Ranni the same day.
Relatives infected
A brother and sister-in-law of the man who had visited Italy were the first to seek treatment for fever at a private hospital in Ranni on Friday. The doctors found symptoms of COVID-19 and learnt that three of their relatives had recently returned from Italy. The matter was immediately referred to the District Collector and the district Health authorities.
The two patients and their three relatives were shifted to the isolation ward at the Pathanamthitta General Hospital. Laboratory reports released early on Sunday confirmed that all five had COVID-19 infection.
The Collector convened an emergency meeting of health officials at 2.30 a.m.
An action plan was prepared to identify all those who had come in contact with the infected persons.
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The 86-year-old mother and 90-year-old father of the infected brothers were shifted to the isolation ward with fever on Sunday.
According to District Medical Officer A.L. Sheeja and General Hospital Medical Superintendent Ashish Manohar, the condition of all the five infected persons is stable.
A senior health official in Delhi said around 4,000 samples from across the country had been tested in the past month.
In the Capital, the government has ordered that Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses, metro trains and hospitals will be disinfected regularly as a precautionary measure.
More isolation facilities
Isolation facilities are being augmented in several hospitals across the country.
The Health Ministry has asked the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi to designate a part of the new emergency wing for setting up isolation beds for suspected COVID-19 patients.
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Six other AIIMS have been directed to keep an isolation bed capacity between 12-15 for coronavirus patients.
This can be scaled up to 30 if need arises, an official said.
(With PTI inputs)
