Kerala detects one more coronavirus case

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: One more student who came back from Wuhan University in China has been infected with the coronavirus, Kerala’s health minister K.K. Shailaja said on Monday. With this, the total number of Indians infected with coronavirus has risen to three.

The third patient is under treatment at Kanhangad district hospital in Kasargod.  The condition of the three patients, all classmates in Wuhan University, is satisfactory and there is no need for worry, the minister said.

The number of confirmed deaths from China’s coronavirus outbreak, meanwhile, rose to 361. As many as 56 people had died on Sunday alone in China.

China’s National Health Commission in its daily report on Monday said that 2,829 cases of coronavirus were reported on February 2, taking the total number of infection to 17,205.

All three cases of coronavirus infection in India were reported from Kerala.

The state health minister said though the mortality in the novel coronavirus infection is significantly low, there is no room for complacency as the coronavirus spreads quickly in a community. It is against this backdrop that the health officials have been given instructions to prepare a list of persons with whom the infected persons might have come into contact before they were quarantined.

So far 140 samples have been sent to National Institute of Virology (NIV) for testing and of these 36 have been found to be negative and three positive. The results of the remaining samples are awaited.

The Kerala minister said the state health department had implemented effective preventive measures after the second positive case in Alappuzha. “I have instructed the officials at different levels to convene meetings in Kasargod in the wake of the third positive case. There is no need for panic. We appeal to everyone to strictly follow the guidelines issued by the government,” she added.

The coronavirus is believed to have emerged in December from a market that sold wild game in the Hubei provincial capital Wuhan in China.

The epidemic has ballooned into a global health emergency, with cases reported in more than 24 countries. Several countries, including India, have banned visitors from China. Mongolia, Russia and Nepal have closed their land borders.

Hundreds of medical workers walked off their jobs on Monday in China’s territory Hong Kong, demanding the city close its border with mainland China to reduce the virus spreading.