Offices disinfected, BJP rally put off, schools shut
HYDERABAD: The number of confirmed novel coronavirus (Covid-19) infections in Hyderabad rose to three on Wednesday with two more persons testing positive in preliminary checks, Telangana’s public health and family welfare department said in a statement. The test samples of the two persons were sent to the National Institute of Virology aboratory, Pune for confirmation.
Of the two, one has a history of travel to Italy. The other is a person who came in contact of the 24-year-old software engineer who tested positive for the virus on Monday.
The two underwent preliminary tests at Hyderabad’s staterun Gandhi Hospital. The state public health and family welfare department said the results of the additional tests on the two sent to Pune are expected on Thursday.
Many of those who came in contact with the infected software engineer have been kept under observation. On Monday, 47 people underwent tests for the novel coronavirus. Forty-five tested negative and two positive.
One of the two person who has tested positive is an employee of DSM Shared Services, part of Dutch MNC which is into health and nutrition. The company said in a statement on Wednesday:“We would like to inform you that one of our DSM colleagues in our Hyderabad office at Mindspace building has been diagnosed with Coronavirus. This diagnosis was confirmed early this morning. We are regularly checking on the colleague who is in hospital as well as family members to ensure everyone is doing fine.”
The company’s offices in two tech campuses of the city, Raheja Mindspace and Brightspace, are being disinfected, DSM’s statement added. It said that till everything is sorted out, its employees should work from home.
The Telangana government has put in place quarantine facilities for 3000 people and close to 300 beds for patients requiring treatment. Health officials also began publicising the preventive measures being taken to ensure that the virus doesn’t spread.
Meanwhile, the BJP said a public rally scheduled to be
THE TELANGANA GOVERNMENT HAS PUT IN PLACE QUARANTINE FACILITIES FOR 3000 PEOPLE AND CLOSE TO 300 BEDS FOR PATIENTS REQUIRING TREATMENT
addressed by Union home minister Amit Shah on March 15 in Hyderabad has been postponed. The party’s chief spokesperson for Telangana K Krishnan Sagar Rao said “This decision was taken to reduce mass physical contact during the rally in the current context of serious precautions being undertaken by the Centre to arrest spread of Coronavirus.”
A couple of schools in the area where the techie, who worked in Bangalore, resided in after coming back to Telangana did not operate as a precautionary measure. A software engineer from Hyderabad who recently visited South Korea and was visiting his wife’s family at Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh, exhibited some early symptoms of the disease and has been quarantined. District authorities have sent his samples for testing to Hyderabad and he is currently under observation, according to district collector Muralidhara Reddy.
The number of infections has surged recently with 15 people including an Indian testing positive at the Indo-Tibetan Border Police’s quarantine facility at Chhawla near Delhi on Wednesday. They were among 21 Italians and three Indians at the facility.
Union health minister Harsh Vardhan has announced that passengers from all countries will be screened at airports.