1,225 Nanded returnees test COVID-19 positive: government

All of them have been screened and quarantined to prevent community transmission, it says

Police personnel note down details of passengers travelling in a bus, who will be subjected to a mandatory 21-day quarantine in the wake of coronavirus pandemic, in Amritsar, Wednesday, April 29, 2020. The passengers were travelling from Nanded in Maharashtra.

Among the 4,216 returnees from Nanded in Maharashtra, 1,225 positive COVID-19 cases have been reported, according to government data.

The information was shared by Dr. S.K. Singh, Director National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), during a video conference with Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and Punjab Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu on Wednesday.

The meeting was part of a series of one-to-one discussions with various States and UTs’ Health Ministers and Collectors of red zones and high priority districts to take stock of the preparedness and the action being taken for the management of the pandemic.

“As on May 12, 2020, all 22 districts stand affected by COVID-19 with 1,913 cases; Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Patiala districts are in the red zone and 15 are in the orange zone. The samples collected are 43,999 with sample positivity rate at 4.3%. The Nanded Hazoor Sahib returnees constituted the bulk of cases,” said an official statement.

Mr. Vardhan said Punjab has done well in operationalising the Ayushman Bharat – Health and Wellness Centres. “These could be further used for screening people with diabetes, hypertension and three common cancers [oral, breast and cervix] and for extension of comprehensive primary healthcare services to the community at large,” he said.

Mr. Sidhu said that even during the lockdown, the OPD services have been continued and non-COVID healthcare delivery has not suffered. He said Punjab has screened 6,58,000 people through house-to-house surveillance and has developed its own dashboard which generates a heat map which is used to define and demarginalise the emerging hotspots for effective containment measures.

“All the returning pilgrims from Nanded Sahib have been screened, tested and quarantined to prevent them from interacting with the community at large, thus effectively preventing the spread of the transmission. Moreover, a death audit has also been undertaken which has indicated that patients with co-morbidities have formed a large percentage of the COVID-19 deaths,” said Mr. Sidhu.

The State recorded 10 cases taking the tally of positive cases to 1,924. The Health department said the active cases are 1,692 and 200 patients have so far been cured, it added.