Eight family members of Covid19 patient test positive in MP

Khargone: Eight members of the family of a man in Khargone district who returned from South Africa and later attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi have tested positive for coronavirus, an official said here.

One of them was the man's mother who died on April 4. Her test report was received now, said Chief Medical and Health Officer Rajni Dabar on Wednesday.

It took the number of persons in the district who contracted the infection to 12.

The 49-year-old man, a trader, had visited South Africa and then flown back to Delhi to attend the Tablighi Jamaat event, Dabar said.

He returned to Khargone on March 19 and was found to have contracted the virus last week.

Besides his mother, seven members of his family including three minors and his father tested positive, Dabar said, adding that all of them were shifted to Indore late on Tuesday night for further treatment.

Of the 12 COVID-19 patients in the district, two -- the trader's mother and a 65-year-old person from village Dhargaon -- died last week. Other ten are undergoing treatment at Indore.

Among those in the trader's family who tested positive are two boys aged 13 and 16 years, a 17-year-old girl and a 19-year-old man.

Outside this family, a medical student who returned from France and a waiter working at a hotel in Indore were found to have caught coronavirus infection.

District collector Gopalchandra Daad declared areas in the radius of three km from the houses of infected persons as containment areas.

So far, 327 persons have tested positive for COVID-19 in Madhya Pradesh with six cases in Bhopal and eight in Khargone coming to light on Tuesday night or Wednesday, health officials said.