Twenty days after returning home to Phulbani in Odisha’s Kandhamal district, a student approached local authorities, suspecting that he may be infected with the coronavirus. The youth is a final year MBBS student of an institute near Wuhan in China. The student said he had developed a cough, cold and chest infection after he reached home on January 11.
Fearful that he may have been infected by the coronavirus while in Wuhan, he wrote to the Kandhamal Chief District Medical Officer (CDMO). On Friday, he met the CDMO, Dr. Rajyashree Patnaik, and was admitted to an isolation ward at the District Headquarter Hospital (DHH), Phulbani, for strict medical supervision.
Special arrangements
According to Dr. Saroj Kanta Sahu, Superintendent of SCB Medical College, Cuttack, where special arrangements have been made for patients suspected to be ailing from the coronavirus infection, State Director of the National Health Mission Shalini Pandit has directed blood and throat swab samples of the youth be sent to the Regional Medical Research Centre, Bhubaneswar.
Till test results are out, the youth will be kept in isolation in at the DHH, Phulbani. Should he test positive for coronavirus, he will be shifted to the MKCG Medical College and Hospital in Berhampur, the nearest referral hospital.
Dr. Bidyadhar Panda, medical specialist at DHH Phulbani, apart from chest congestion, the medical student was feeling feverish, but there was no rise in his body temperature.
Earlier, two persons had come forward to inform the State government that they had returned to Odisha from China via Malaysia, but they had no symptoms of a coronavirus infection. Nevertheless, as a precaution, they were advised to be monitored in isolation at their homes for a fortnight.
