Pharma firm shut after 26 employees test positive for COVID-19 in Gujarat

A day after as many as 26 employees of Cadila Pharmaceuticals were tested positive for coronavirus in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad district, the plant was shut down on Thursday (May 7).

India’s one of the privately held largest pharma company, had to close the company’s manufacturing unit at Dholka town in the district after 26 of the employees were tested positive, said the district official.

They were tested for the novel virus on Wednesday and the results came on Thursday declared that the employees were tested positive, district development officer Arun Mahesh Babu said.

Following the development, 95 employees of that unit, who may have come in contact with the infected personnel, have been put under home quarantine, he added.

Both the manufacturing unit and the entire Dholka town have been sanitised, the official added.

Meanwhile, in a release issued by Cadila Pharmaceuticals confirmed the reports and said, “Recently, 26 employees from our Dholka facility tested positive for Covid-19. Following this, we have closed our operations, and are undertaking deep sanitisation of the plant and its surroundings.”

The incident comes just days after the country began to ease some of its lockdown restrictions aimed at preventing the spread of the new coronavirus. Ahmedabad, however, is one of the more badly affected cities in India and has moved to tighten restrictions this week.

(With inputs from PTI)