Virus watch: Corona travel, contact net widens to 30,000

NEW DELHI: India confirmed its 30th coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patient on Thursday and authorities widened the number of people under watch for the illness to close to 30,000, ramping up containment efforts that also included an order for all primary schools in the national capital to be closed for the rest of the month.

The confirmed patient identified on Thursday is a 57-year-old Ghaziabad resident, who returned from Tehran, Iran, on February 23 and was approached by health workers on Monday. He was isolated and swabbed for samples, which turned out to be positive.

The country now has 27 active patients – three patients in Kerala recovered last month – and authorities are now looking for more people who may have been in close contact with them.

Till Thursday, “28,529 people with history of travel to a Covid19-affected country, or contact with a positive case, are have been brought under community surveillance and monitoring,” Union health minister Harsh Vardhan said in Parliament, where he made a suo motu statement on the outbreak in both Houses.

The contact-tracing operation is crucial to avert a wider community transmission. “…in addition to Covid-19 cases related to travel, some cases of community transmission have also been observed, it has been decided to involve district collectors and States have been asked to form rapid response teams as the district, block and village levels,” the Union health ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

All confirmed patients are stable, including the three from Kerala who are now discharged and disease-free, the ministry statement added.