The first COVID-19 cases were reported from Maharashtra’s ‘sugar heartland’ on Monday with five persons in Satara and Sangli districts testing positive, taking the State’s tally to 97 positive cases.
According to officials, a 45-year woman with a travel history to Dubai and hailing from Khandala in Satara district tested positive.
The other four cases are members of a family — three male and one female — from Islampur Tehsil in Sangli. All four had a history of travel to Saudi Arabia.
Additionally, one person each from Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan Dombivli tested positive as well.
Earlier, another COVID-19 positive case was recorded in Pune in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of patients in the city to 16 and the tally in Pune district, including Pimpri-Chinchwad, to 28.
According to the district authorities, the new case is apparently another close contact of the 41-year-old city-based Aanganwadi worker with no history of foreign travel who had tested positive for the virus last week and is presently on ventilator support at the city’s Bharti hospital.
The total tally in Maharashtra has shot up to 97 in the past 24 hours, with the results of 23 persons testing positive.
On Sunday, the four new cases that tested positive in Pune were close kin of this lady, one of whom is reportedly an IT professional, said the authorities.
The IT professional, in her early 20s, is an employee of an IT major sited in Hinjewadi’s Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park.
IT company’s advisory
On Sunday, an internal communication sent to the company’s employees said the offices would be shut till Tuesday evening as a precautionary measure.
The company’s premises are being comprehensively sanitised and fumigated.
The communication read: “We are writing to let you know that a positive case of COVID-19 was detected among one of our employees in Pune, today. While we are providing all support to the concerned employee, we are also working with the health authorities on contact tracing as well as subsequent actions needed.”
The e-mail further said that to avoid unnecessary panic, only those who had been identified as potential contacts had been communicated with and advised of next steps they need to take (administering self-quarantine for 14 days at home) and other measures communicated by the govt health advisory.
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“Also, the entire campus is being comprehensively sanitised and fumigated as a precautionary measure. As you already know, the zoning guidelines would help us in limiting the required actions to the building or zone concerned. We will be closing SDB 1, SDB 4 and FC 1 for necessary fumigation and sanitisation for the next 48 hours (until Tuesday evening). We will share separate and comprehensive communication with the employees working out of these buildings,” reads the mail, urging its employees to remain calm.
Anganwadi worker case
Meanwhile, district health officials have sprung into action to track and quarantine all those who came in contact with the Anganwadi worker during her various trips across the State.
The woman had travelled to Vashi in Navi Mumbai on March 3 to attend a wedding and returned to Pune in the same cab the following day.
Sources said that a few days later, she attended a zilla parishad function at a village in Velhe tehsil, around 50 km from Pune city.
After displaying symptoms like sore throat and dry cough, she visited a general practitioner and despite remaining home for a brief period, ventured out again to Varasgaon, 60 km from Pune.
She was finally admitted to Bharti hospital on March 16 and her samples were sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) to test for the H1N1 virus (swine flu). Instead, she tested positive for COVID-19 on March 20.
Following this, district authorities have been scrambling to trace all her contacts. They have already quarantined several villagers in Velhe, where the woman attended the programme.
