As many as 15 people from Nalgonda, Suryapet and erstwhile Medak districts of Telangana who attended Markaz prayers in Delhi last month tested positive for coronavirus on Thursday.
Five residents of Nalgonda town and a woman from Miryalaguda, who had been to the national capital tested positive for COVID-19, District Medical and Health Officer Kondal Rao confirmed on Thursday.
Of the total 44 persons who attended Tablighi Jamaat from Nalgonda, 34 tested negative for COVID-19, six tested positive and test results of four persons are awaited, he said. The information from the Ministry of Health was disclosed only to medical and police officials late on Wednesday night.
According to officials, the patients were identified as residents of Seetharampuram in Miryalaguda, Meer Bagh colony, Barqatpur, Manyam Chelka and Rahmath Bagh colony in Nalgonda town.
Rapid Response Teams on Thursday morning traced primary contact and picked up families of the six patients amid resistance from relatives and colony residents. Officials said 39 people were the primary contacts and they were all quarantined at the District Hospital. The 34 who tested negative were brought back from Hyderabad and were lodged at Mahatma Gandhi University – quarantine centre at Anneparthy.
Mr. Rao said samples of 39 primary contacts were sent to Hyderabad for testing. Search for secondary contacts would be started on Friday.
District Collector Prashant J Patil on Thursday said that all the four colonies In Nalgonda, where the five persons who tested positive for COVID-19 reside, will be cordoned off and movement of all persons there prohibited to arrest the spread of the disease. “Manyam Chelka, Rahmath Bagh Nagar, Barqatpur and Meer Bagh Colony have been cordoned off and strictly movement of all residents in these colonies is prohibited,” he said. All entry and exit points to the residential colonies have been barricaded and fences installed.
Starting Friday, Mr. Patil said, essential services such as vegetables, fruits and provisions, including the 12 kg rice provision by the government will be delivered to every house in the colony at their door step.
Suryapet district Collector T. Vinay Krishna Reddy said on Thursday that one person tested positive for COVID-19, a first in the district. The patient was one of the 12 persons from the district who attended the Markaz prayers. Ten others tested negative for the virus. Arrangements were being made to shift the positive person to Hyderabad, Mr Reddy said.
In Sangareddy, six persons out of the 21 who been to Delhi to attend Markaz prayers tested positive for COVID-19. All of them were shifted to Gandhi Hospital. Out of the six persons, two belong to Sangareddy town, two from Angadipet, one each from Kondapur and Zaheerabad.
The officials have identified 43 primary contacts of the COVID- 19 patients. All the 43 belonging to the six families are being shifted to Narayana College located at Pati. 42 medical teams have been formed to identify secondary contacts.
Soon after reports about six persons testing positive reached the district administration, Finance minister T. Harish Rao along with Lok Sabha member K Prabhakar Reddy held a review meeting with Collector M. Hanuamantha Rao and Superintendent of Police S. Chandrasekhar Reddy. Mr. Harish Rao said that samples of all the 43 persons will be taken and sent to Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB).
Mr Rao said that eight people – six from Sangareddy, one each from Medak and Gajwel – from the erstwhile Medak district- were reported COVID positive.
Meanwhile, a head constable working on Telangana-Maharashtra border in Basar area in Nirmal district has been admitted to the COVID-19 isolation ward at Government General Hospital in Nizamabad on Thursday as he developed symptoms for the virus.
(With inputs from our correspondents in Nalgonda, Sangareddy and Nizamabad ).
