Cases with unknown source spark worries

A 41-year-old woman in Pune tested positive for the coronavirus disease or Covid-19 on Saturday, becoming the second patient in India with no history of foreign travel or documented contact with previous cases and fuelling fears that the country had slipped into the deadly third phase of the infection when the contagion spreads rapidly.

At this stage of the outbreak , known as the community transmission phase, the origin of any individual patient’s infection cannot be pinpointed to travel to a global hotspot of the disease, or documented contact with a previously infected person. This means that the virus is freely circulating in the community, making it tough for authorities to control its spread or enforce containment measures.

In countries worst-hit by the coronavirus disease, or Covid-19, such as China, Italy, Iran or South Korea, the number of infections and fatalities rose sharply once the country moved into the community transmission phase.

The case of the Pune woman, confirmed by the National Institute of Virology in Pune, came a day after the government admitted that it had yet not traced the origin of the infection of a 20-year-old Delhi resident who had tested positive in Chennai earlier this week.

The authorities are yet to find out how the Pune woman got the infection. “We are still investigating the case. She must have come in contact with someone who had foreign travel history,” Pune district collector Naval Kishore Ram said.

IN TWO CASES NOW, ONE INVOLVING A PUNE WOMAN, AND A MAN TESTED IN TAMIL NADU, THE ORIGIN OF THE INFECTION IS UNKNOWN