As the state administration in Andhra Pradesh enforced a lockdown to contain the spread of the COVID-19 in the state, the total number of the virus-hit cases went up to seven on Monday, with a youth, who returned to Visakhapatnam from Birmingham, United Kingdom, testing positive.
The patient is a 25-year-old man who had travelled from Birmingham to Delhi and then to Vizag by flight, on March 17. After undergoing thermal screening and being advised home quarantine at the airport, he went home to Tagarapuvalasa by car, accompanied by his father. After starting to develop symptoms from March 19, he visited the Gayatri Vidya Parishad hospital on March 21. He was then advised to go to the Government General Hospital for Chest and Communicate Diseases (GGHCCD), where he was admitted on the same day.
With this, the number of positive cases in Vizag alone has gone up to 3. Earlier on March 20, the first case from Vizag came to light, when a 65-year-old man who had returned from Saudi Arabia tested positive. The man, who is from Allipuram, had taken a flight from Mecca to Hyderabad, on March 9. After staying in Hyderabad for two days, he travelled to Vizag by train on March 11. On experiencing symptoms, he visited the Government Hospital for Chest and Communicate Diseases on March 17, and was tested positive.
Soon after, a 49-year-old woman who was a close contact of the 65-year-old patient tested positive, in the first case of local transmission in the state.
One of the seven patients has already recovered and been discharged from the hospital in Nellore after a second test came back negative, the state Medical and Health Department said on Tuesday.
As of Monday evening, the department had sent a total of 181 samples for examination, and 166 of them tested negative. The result of eight more samples was awaited, the department said in its latest bulletin.
The state government has identified 14,038 people so far, who have returned from various foreign countries in the last few days, and has kept 11,560 people under home isolation.
Fifty-two people are undergoing treatment with symptoms in hospitals, while 2,426 have the 28-day observation period.
Meanwhile, the state government attached four IAS officers to the Medical and Health Department to coordinate the anti-coronavirus measures.
While the Central government declared three districts -- Visakhapatnam, Krishna and Prakasam -- as high risk, prohibitory orders under Sections 133 and 144 CrPC are in place in at least seven districts of the state till March 31.
PTI Inputs
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