Coronavirus: Three quarantined in Pune, Mumbai

3,756 travellers, 15 from Maharashtra, screened at Mumbai airport till January 26

The Health Ministry maintained that passengers were being screened at 7 airports in India and risk communication and self-declaration were being done at 12 other airports.

Three people, including two men aged 40 and another in his 30s from Pune, and a 36-year-old man from Mumbai, have been quarantined as a precautionary measure to curb the novel strain of Coronavirus (nCoV) that has led to an outbreak in China. While the Mumbai patient, a resident of Tardeo, had visited Shanghai and Guangzhou, the 40-year-old from Pune had recently travelled to Shanghai.

BMC’s executive health officer Dr. Padmaja Keskar said that the Tardeo resident had cough since the past five days and has had one episode of fever on Sunday. “The patient stayed in Shanghai from January 3 to 7 and then in Guangzhou from January 7 to 11. He took a flight via Hong Kong and landed in Mumbai on January 11,” said Dr. Keskar adding that he has no history of contact with any person with similar illness or history of travel to a fish market.

“The patient is vitally stable and has been put on symptomatic treatment,” said Dr. Keskar. According to the Centere for Disease Control and Prevention, many of the patients in the outbreak of respiratory illness caused by nCoV in Wuhan had some link to a large seafood and live animal market, suggesting animal-to-person spread.

State’s epidemiologist Dr. Pradeep Awate said that the Pune patient had returned to Mumbai on January 10 and developed symptoms after which he was placed under isolation on Monday.

Negative so far

Meanwhile, three patients quarantined earlier in Mumbai have tested negative for nCoV but continue to be under observation. State health officials who drafted a discharge policy for these patients said that they will continue to remain in the isolation ward till their repeat samples also test negative. “Fresh samples will be collected on fourth day of admission and once these repeat samples test negative, the patients will be discharged,” said Dr. Archana Patil of Directorate of Health Services (DHS), Maharashtra.

As many as 3,756 travellers were screened till January 26 at the Mumbai airport, including 15 from Maharashtra. Of these, four are now admitted in Mumbai and two in Pune. The State health officials have urged people to call 104 helpline for queries about nCoV. The Union Health Ministry maintained that passengers were being screened at 7 airports in India and risk communication and self-declaration were being done at 12 other airports.

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses with some causing less severe ailments, such as the common cold, and others more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

According to the World Health Organization, as on January 25, a total of 1,320 confirmed cases on nCoV have been reported globally, of which 1,297 were from China, including Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) (5 confirmed cases), Macau SAR (2 confirmed cases) and Taipei (3 confirmed cases). Forty one deaths have been reported so far.