Six Mumbai returnees test COVID-19 positive in HP, tally climbs to 99

Six people, including three of a family, who returned to Himachal Pradesh from Mumbai have tested positive for coronavirus, taking the states tally to 99, officials said on Wednesday (May 20).

While five persons, including three women, tested COVID-19 positive in Kangra district, a man confirmed positive for the disease in Kullu district, they said. All the six persons had returned to the state from Mumbai along with other 697 people in a special train on May 18, the officials said.

The five cases in Kangra include a woman (56), her son (31) and his wife (25), a woman (43) from Lambagaon and a man (31) from Jawalamukhi, Kangra Superintendent of Police Vimukt Ranjan said. They tested positive at Dr Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College (PRGMC) in Tanda, he added. They were quarantined at Paraur and are being shifted to Baijnath, Ranjan said.

The active cases in Kangra now stand at 18. A man died of COVID-19 in the district in March. Eight people have been cured in Kangra out of the total 27 positive cases. In Kullu, a 23-year-old man of Anni tested positive for COVID-19, Superintendent of Police Gaurav Singh said. This is the first positive coronavirus case reported in the district. Gaurav said the man had returned to Himachal Pradesh from Mumbai in a special train on May 18.

After alighting at the Una railway station, he along with 10 other people from Kullu reached Bajaura in a Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) bus and they all were kept in isolation at the Ayurveda hospital there, the SP said. Samples of all of them were taken and the rest nine tested negative, he added.

The man has been kept in isolation separately from others. Samples of all his primary contacts will be taken for testing. The bus driver and the conductor have been quarantined, Gaurav said. The total number of infected people in the state has risen to 99. Fifty-one among them have been cured while four have died. The active cases in the state are 44 — 18 from Kangra, 11 from Hamirpur, five each from Bilaspur and Chamba, two each from Sirmaur and Una and one from Kullu.