Coronavirus cases surge to 33, over 29,000 quarantined
‘I appeal to my fellow countrymen to stay away from rumours.we need to follow the advice of doctors, avoid handshakes and start greeting others with ‘namaste’ once again,’ says Modi
India on Saturday said the country has 33 confirmed cases of Covid 19 coronavirus infection, while over 29,000 people have been put under quarantine.
Punjab reported two fresh cases, taking the total number of cases in India to 33. Both the patients, who came back from Italy last week, have been admitted to Guru Nanak Dev Hospital in Amritsar.
The Amritsar district health department on Saturday said both men are from Hoshiarpur.
The two had reached Amritsar from Delhi on a flight.
The flight had 104 passengers and 10 crew. A man in Jammu & Kashmir earlier tested positive for the coronavirus.
He is being treated at the government medical college in Jammu.
All primary schools in Jammu and Samba districts have been shut down after two people were suspected to be infected, the government said on Saturday.
“Test reports of the two suspected patients from Jammu received. Both high viral load cases. High probability of testing positive,” Principal
Secretary of Planning in the Union Territory, Rohit Kansal, tweeted in the morning.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday asked people to stay away from rumours regarding coronavirus and emphasised on the need to follow the advice of doctors in this regard. He also asked people to avoid handshakes and start greeting others with “namaste” once again.
“I appeal to my fellow countrymen to stay away from rumours regarding coronavirus. We need to follow the advice of doctors in this regard, people should avoid handshakes and start greeting others with ‘namaste’ once again,” Modi said.
Modi held a meeting with ministers in the morning to review the situation. The meeting was attended by Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and others.
Agra mayor Naveen Jain, who also happens to be the president of the All India Council of Mayors (AICM), shot off a letter to the Union tourism ministry demanding a temporary shutdown of archaeological and cultural monuments and sites across the country, including the Taj Mahal in Agra, till the third week of March to check the spread of the coronavirus.
A flight from Tehran brought to the national capital swab samples of Indians in Iran who are suspected of having coronavirus infection. The flight, operated by Mahan Air, returned with many Iranian nationals at around 10.30am on Saturday, an official at the Indira Gandhi International Airport said.
Meanwhile an acute shortage has been reported of N 95 mask - believed to be helpful to stay away from the coronavirus infection. Prices have also skyrocketed in the face of increased demand - both in medical stores and online stores. But the health ministry says healthy people don’t need to wear masks. “Wear a mask only if you feel unwell or have cough, fever or face difficulty in breathing,” it said.
As India braces for impact, the main concerns emerging within public health circles include weak surveillance capacity and laboratory strength in the country of a billion-plus people.
“All countries with weak health systems will face challenges in dealing with a widespread outbreak. That is why WHO has been underlining the need for preparedness - surveillance and proper use of data, training of health care workers, referral systems, laboratory capacity, health information systems and community engagement,” said Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist, WHO.
“In India, there is wide variability between states in health system capacity and urgent attention needs to be paid to the weaker states.” Union health ministry has made functional 52 laboratories for testing samples while 57 labs have been designated for helping in sample collection for COVID-19 to enhance capacity for diagnosis and detection of the disease.
“Following the increase in load of screening samples from suspected cases with symptoms and travel history to the affected countries, the Department of Health Research/icmr has commissioned 52 laboratories for COVID-19 testing in India,” an official said.
First detected in a cluster of mysterious pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China, the new coronavirus has spread rapidly across the globe and infected more than 1,00,000 people.