Number of coronavirus cases rises to 43, three-year-old from Kerala among those infected

The number of coronavirus cases in India rose to 43 on Monday with four people, including a three-year-old child in Kerala who had returned from Italy, testing positive, Health Ministry officials said on Monday. Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu reported one case each, officials said. The ministry in a statement also clarified that the patient from Murshidabad, West Bengal, who died on Sunday had tested negative for COVID-19 and "hence so far no death has been reported due to the disease in the country". Giving details, officials said the patient in Jammu, the first case in Jammu and Kashmir, is learnt to have a travel history to Iran while the patient from Uttar Pradesh had come in contact with the six people from Agra who had tested positive for coronavirus. The Delhi patient has no travel history and had come in contact with a positive patient from the city, Delhi Health Department officials added. Earlier, some officials had said the patient had travelled to Italy. With Delhi recording its fourth coronavirus case, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan chaired a meeting with Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal as well as senior officials.

"We are sending detailed guidelines to all states on ways to contain the coronavirus. We have asked states to strengthen laboratories and manpower to effectively deal with the coronavirus and form early rapid action teams," Vardhan told reporters. Asserting that the government is prepared to deal with the outbreak, he stressed on the need for coordinated action between departments and agencies for activities such as contact tracing, community surveillance, hospital management, identification of isolation wards, ensuring adequate personal protection equipment and masks and risk communication for mass awareness.

A total of 8,74,708 international passengers from 8,255 flights have been screened at airports till now with 1,921 passengers identified as symptomatic, the ministry said. Of these, 177 have been hospitalised, 33,599 passengers are under observation and 21,867 passengers have completed their observation period. Of the 3,003 samples tested for COVID-19, 43 were positive and 2,694 samples returned negative results. The results of the other tests are awaited. The ministry appealed to people to clearly reveal their travel history and fill the details in self-declaration forms properly.

An estimated 110,041 people from more than 90 countries have tested positive for coronavirus that has killed 3,825 people. In the Kerala town of Kochi, officials said the three-year-old child who tested positive for coronavirus and its parents landed at the Cochin International Airport Limited at 6 am on March 7 from Italy. They underwent thermal screening and the child was detected with symptoms of the disease. The family was immediately referred to the isolation ward of the Kalamassery Medical College Hospital, they said.

Samples of the parents have also been sent for lab tests, the officials added. The five cases from Kerala reported on Sunday are three members of a family with a travel history to Italy and two of their relatives who came in contact with them.

The family is reported to have visited relatives and attended few functions and their contacts are being traced, the ministry said in a statement. Up north, in Jammu, a 63-year-old woman who declared positive was among the two patients declared "high viral load cases" by the administration on the weekend.

They are undergoing treatment at the isolation ward of the Government Medical College (GMC) hospital and are in a stable condition, officials in Jammu 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 two with a travel history to Italy, South Korea and Iran had fled the hospital's isolation ward on Wednesday shortly after being admitted there but were brought back within hours of the incident, the official said. Jammu and Kashmir administration spokesperson Rohit Kansal said they are watching the situation and have put 400 people under surveillance in Satawari and Sarwal areas of Jammu. The number of COVID-19 cases in India, which was just six till last Tuesday, includes 16 Italians as well as three Kerala patients who were discharged last month following their recovery.

The coronavirus scare cast a shadow over Holi on Tuesday in large parts of north India with many people cancelling their celebrations. In Kerala, notwithstanding the scare and strict government guidelines, lakhs of women took part in the famous "Attukal Pongala" festival. Preparing 'pongala' (sweet offering) is part of the all-women ritual of the annual festival of the Attukal Bhahavathy Temple here, popularly known as the "Women's Sabarimala." Unlike previous years, women devotees, including children and elders, could be seen wearing face masks while preparing the offering, as a precautionary measure in the wake of the virus outbreak..