Coronavirus | Man who held feast for 1,500 persons in M.P.’s Morena tests positive

Ten of his relatives, who had taken part in a feast, also tested positive.

April 05, 2020 05:20 pm | Updated April 06, 2020 01:33 am IST - Bhopal

The novel coronavirus

The novel coronavirus

Fourteen days after he returned from Dubai, a 40-year-old man from Morena tested positive for the coronavirus along with his wife on Thursday. A day later, ten of his relatives, who had taken part in a feast hosted by him, also tested positive.

More than 1,500 persons attended the March 20 feast ceremony in honour of his late mother, who died on March 8. They have been confined in quarantine, and the locality where the venue was situated has been sealed, said District Chief Medical and Health Officer R.C Bandil.

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Of the 23 persons whose samples had been taken, ten relatives, including seven children, had tested positive, he added. The district administration has declared the house of the man, a restaurant waiter who had returned from Dubai on March 17, as an “epicentre” and the area within its 3 km radius as a “containment area”.

The children were aged between 2 and 14 years, whereas a 60-year-old woman had contracted the virus too, said Sapna M. Lovanshi, Additional Director, State Directorate of Health Services.

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“His own two children have tested positive. We are collecting samples of all their primary contacts now, and of those residing within the containment area having symptoms, including cough and cold,” said Dr. Bandil.

When the man landed in New Delhi, he was screened but showed no symptoms until March-end, according to A.K. Gupta of the Morena District Hospital.

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“His wife told us that she had a cough and cold even before her husband’s return,” Dr. Gupta said. Still, even when the couple turned up at the hospital on March 29, the man did not declare his travel history.

“However, he returned to the hospital on March 31, complaining of a mild cough and cold. That’s when he declared he had returned from Dubai, and we took their samples,” he said.

“The ten members who had tested positive a day later did not have any symptoms,” said Pallavi Jain Govil, Principal Secretary, State Public Health and Family Welfare Department. “And no new area had been affected.”

Still, after the feast, the participants at the ceremony had dispersed to different parts of the district and their primary contacts were being traced, said an official of the district administration, requesting anonymity.

“All the six brothers and two sisters of the man had attended the gathering,” explained Dr. Gupta. Two of the brothers were his neighbours, too, in a congested locality.

With Morena being an entry point to Madhya Pradesh for several migrant labourers returning from New Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana, the district administration is also grappling to confine in quarantine more than 30,000 workers in villages, said an official.

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