Five travellers in Maharashtra hospitalized on suspicion of coronavirus infection

Five travellers are currently admitted to hospitals in Maharashtra over suspicion of being infected by the novel coronavirus (Covid-19), the state’s health department said on Tuesday. Of them, three are being treated at Naidu Hospital in Pune, while two are at civic-run Kasturba Hospital in Mumbai, according to a health department release here. A total of 39,784 travellers have been screened at the Mumbai international airport since around mid-January for coronavirus, whose outbreak was reported in December-end from China’s Wuhan city, it said. [caption id=“attachment_7995381” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] India’s third case of coronavirus was confirmed in kerala by the Health Min on Monday, 2 February 2020. Image: PTI[/caption] “Field surveillance is also actively going on all across the state in search of people coming from the coronavirus-affected areas,” stated the release. Since around mid-January, Maharashtra had 228 travellers (till Tuesday) coming from coronavirus-affected areas and 70 of them, who showed symptoms similar to the viral infection, were kept at isolation facilities, it said. “Till today, 66 samples sent by state authorities for examination have been found negative as per the reports of the National Institute of Virology, Pune,” said the release. All air passengers coming to Maharashtra from Wuhan, the capital of central Chinas Hubei province, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, are being isolated and tested for the deadly disease as per the Centre’s directive, it said. Travellers coming from other affected areas are being subjected to 14 days of medical follow up. Also, 142 of the 228 such passengers have completed this follow-up period till date, the release said. Apart from Mumbai, Pune and Thane, air passengers are also being monitored in Nanded, Buldhana, Nagpur, Wardha, Sangli, Ahmednagar, Amaravati, Palghar, Jalgaon, Chandrapur and Satara districts, it said. The coronavirus is a large family of viruses that causes illnesses ranging from the common cold to acute respiratory syndromes, but the virus that has killed people in China is a novel strain and not seen before. Common symptoms of the novel coronavirus strain include respiratory symptoms such as fever, cough, and shortness of breath, according to the WHO. The WHO has declared the coronavirus epidemic as a global health emergency. The virus, which has spread to more than two dozen countries, including India the US and the UK, has killed 1,868 people in China till now.