Coronavirus cases in India rise to 43; 3-yr-old tests positive in Kerala
The three-year-old child who had tested positive in Kerala and its parents, who had reached the Cochin International Airport Limited at 6 am on March 7 from Italy, were subjected to thermal screening at the universal surveillance system established.
The number of coronavirus cases in India rose to 43 on Monday (March 9) with four people, including a three-year-old child in Kerala who had returned from Italy, testing positive for the disease, Health Ministry officials said on Monday.
Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Jammu and Kashmir reported one case each, officials said. They added that no deaths have been reported from anywhere in the country.
Giving details, officials said the patient in Jammu — the first case in Jammu and Kashmir — had a travel history to Iran. The woman was among two patients who were declared “high viral load cases” by the administration.
They are undergoing treatment at the isolation ward of the Government Medical College (GMC) hospital and are in a stable condition, the officials said.
“The test report of the woman patient is positive, while the report of the other patient is still awaited,” a Health Department official said.
The one in Delhi had travelled to Italy. The third patient from Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut town had come in contact with the six people from Agra who had tested positive for coronavirus.
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Officials at Kochi confirmed that a three-year-old child has tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
The child and its parents, who had reached the Cochin International Airport Limited at 6 am on March 7 from Italy, were subjected to thermal screening at the universal surveillance system established, officials said.
Detecting symptoms of coronavirus in the child, they were immediately transferred to the isolation ward of the Kalamassery Medical College Hospital, they said. The samples of the child sent for examination at the NiV lab at Alappuzha have tested positive for coronavirus, they said.
The samples of the parents have also been sent for a lab test, the officials added.
Three people who returned from coronavirus-affected regions in the past nine days were quarantined on Sunday (March 9) in Indore in Madhya Pradesh due to suspicion over possible exposure to the virus, a senior health official said.
Indore District Chief Medical and Health Officer Dr Praveen Jadia said the three, including a 34-year-old woman, had returned from the United States and Malaysia.
This comes after a second person tested positive for the virus in Tamil Nadu on Sunday. Earlier in the day, five members of a family confirmed being infected by the virus in Kerala.
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According to media reports, the father and mother in the family had travelled to Italy but refused to report to authorities after they returned. They were later rounded up by officials after the couple’s in-laws inadvertently revealed that the two of them had returned from Italy.
Meanwhile, the samples of 19 people kept in isolation wards in Madhya Pradesh for suspected exposure to the virus came back negative, while reports of two others are awaited, Additional Director, Health, Dr Vina Sinha said.
No positive case of coronavirus has been reported from Madhya Pradesh so far.
She said 218 of the 600 people who returned to the state from coronavirus-affected countries have been kept in isolation at their houses, while the surveillance period has ended for 342 people.
She said all passengers coming from such countries are being screened at Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, and Jabalpur airports.
Two new coronavirus testing laboratories at Bhopal’s AIIMS and Jabalpur’s National Institute of Research in Tribal Health (NIRTH) have been identified, Sinha informed.
On Saturday (March 7), Tamil Nadu confirmed the first case of coronavirus with a 45-year-old man who had travelled to Oman testing positive. The resident from Tamil Nadu has been kept in isolation at RGG Hospital in Chennai for observation.
(With inputs from agencies)
