Coronavirus: five including Chinese national quarantined

Mumbai: A Chinese national, and four others, have been quarantined in Pune, Ahmed-nagar and Jalgaon for possible exposure to the novel coronavirus, an official statement said on Friday.

While two are at district hospitals in Ahmednagar and Jalgaon, the Chinese man and remaining two were admitted to Pune’s civic-run Naidu Hospital’s isolation ward.

No confirmed case of coronavirus has been found in the state so far. As many as twenty-five persons, quarantined on suspicion of exposure to the coronavirus, have been discharged from hospitals in the state after their blood reports tested negative for the infection, the statement said.

The Chinese national was on Friday admitted to Pune hospital after he vomited on Pune-bound Air India flight from Delhi. Health Minister Rajesh Tope, meanwhile, urged people not to discriminate against those who have arrived from China and other countries where coronavirus infections have been reported.

“Medical certificates or laboratory reports are being sought from the people who have returned from coronavirus-hit areas at the time of joining (workplaces). This is wrong,” the statement quoted Tope as saying.

Such people are kept un-der observation for 14 days upon arrival in India and they need not undergo te-sts again, so “medical certificate or laboratory rep-ort should not be sought from them,” he added.

The minister also urged people not to believe and spread rumours. Blood samples of the five persons who are under observation in hospitals have been sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune and reports are expected on Saturday, the statement said. A total of 16,063 passengers have been screened at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, Tope said. The virus has so far killed 630 people in China and spread to 25 countries, including India (three confirmed cases have been reported from Kerala), the US and the UK.