At least 46 people in the Delhi-NCR region – and about 100 others across the country – have been quarantined, isolated or put under watch for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), officials said on Tuesday as they launched a massive contact-tracing operation for new infections and ordered reinforcing of health care facilities to stave off a full-blown epidemic.
Experts said that there was no need for panic, but urged people to follow hygiene and reporting protocols.
The identified people are believed to have been in close contact with three confirmed patients – a tourist from Italy, a Delhi resident who flew back from Italy via Vienna last month, and a Bengaluru-based engineer who returned from Dubai and went on to travel to Hyderabad even as he had symptoms of the infection.
At least seven of those under watch — six from Agra who are the Delhi man’s relatives, and the Italian tourist’s wife — are believed to have been infected, local-level tests showed, but their status will only be confirmed by Pune’s National Institute of Virology (NIV). Results are expected by Wednesday midday.
The people who have been quarantined include family members of the patients, people they met at social gatherings, fellow passengers, and crews of airlines and hotels they had been in while they were infected and, thus, potentially infectious.
As a precaution, two schools in Noida – including one where the Delhi patient’s children are students – have been closed for the week.
“India is at a cusp where infection control can go either way. Self-reporting and high-quality contact-tracing, home quarantining and isolation are crucial to stop its spread because if we have a large cluster in smaller towns and rural areas, we will have a huge problem,” said Dr Randeep Guleria, director and professor of pulmonary medicine at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
The new coronavirus, a pathogen not seen anywhere in the world till it began spreading in central China’s Wuhan in late December, has become an epidemiological nightmare as it sickened close to 92,000 people and killed 3,100 in approximately three months.
It has now spread to nearly 75 countries.
“Had an extensive review regarding preparedness on the Covid-19 Novel Coronavirus. Different ministries and states are working together, from screening people arriving in India to providing prompt medical attention,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a tweet, adding: “There is no need to panic. We need to work together, take small yet important measures to ensure self-protection.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) said the outbreak puts the world in “uncharted territory”.
“We have never before seen a respiratory pathogen that is capable of community transmission, but which can also be contained with the right measures,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday, news agency AFP reported.
Community transmission means infections within a population are not imported from another virus-hit area.
In Delhi, approximately 15 people who were in close contact with the infected person who returned from Vienna have been taken to the Safdarjung Hospital. Six more relatives of the man, who were in Agra and are also showing signs of the disease, were scheduled to reach the hospital by Tuesday evening.
Officials continued to seek more information about others who may have come in contact with the patient. Air India issued an appeal via Twitter on Tuesday for people who were on the same flight as the man (Feb 20 Vienna-Delhi flight AI-154) to follow health ministry protocols. The protocols suggest people self-isolate and watch for symptoms if they have been exposed to a patient, or seek medical help if they show symptoms.
Shortly after the Delhi resident’s infection was confirmed, officials reached out to several more families that attended a dinner hosted by him , as well as the management of the hotel. The children of two of these families are students at the two schools that were shut as a precaution.
A group of Italian tourists and three Indian tour operators have separately been isolated at the ITBP’s Chhawla Camp in the Capital’s south-east.
According to a health ministry official asking not to be named, these people were in the same group from which an Italian national has tested positive in Rajasthan’s capital Jaipur. “His (Italian in Jaipur) condition is stable,” the official added.
The third confirmed case was that of a Bengaluru-based techie who returned from Dubai, where he had been unwell for days. The software engineer landed in the Karnataka capital on February 20, and took a bus two days later to his hometown Hyderabad where he was hospitalised with symptoms of a flu shortly after.
On Monday, a test confirmed he was suffering from the Covid-19, prompting authorities to trace his co-passengers, flatmates and colleagues.
“The roommate of the techie as well as 25 colleagues who interacted with him have been screened. All the people in the 92 flats in the apartment building where he was staying have also been screened and are negative,” said Karnataka health minister B Sriramulu.
Fears persist that he may have infected more people since he had been showing symptoms of the disease and was being treated at Secunderabad’s Apollo Hospital’s clinic for five days before being admitted.
IndiGo airline, which flew the software engineer, on the Feb 20 Dubai-Bengaluru flight has put four crew members under home observation since March 2, it said in a statement.
The Union health ministry on Tuesday issued a travel advisory suspending all regular visas/e-visas granted on or before March 3 to nationals of Italy, Iran, South Korea, Japan who have not yet entered India.
The advisory also suspends visa on arrival (VoA) issued on or before March 3 to Japanese and South Korean nationals who have not yet entered India.
