Two Chinese nationals have been admitted to the isolation ward of the state-run Gandhi hospital in Hyderabad as a precautionary measure after they approached it to be tested for presence of novel coronavirus (nCoV), health officials said on Thursday.
Samples of 37 people, which had been tested for the virus so far, were negative, official sources said, adding that test results of 20 others were awaited.
The 20 people were under observation in two different state-run hospitals in the city. No positive case have been reported in the state till date, they said.
The two Chinese nationals, who have been working in Telangana for several years now, returned from their country last month, and they approached health authorities on Thursday for nCov test though they did not not show any symptoms, officials said.
They were admitted to the isolation ward at the state- run Gandhi hospital as a precautionary measure, pending outcome of their nCoV test.
The tests for determination of nCoV are now being conducted at the state-run Gandhi hospital in Hyderabad. The samples were earlier used to be sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) at Pune.
Meanwhile, the Death toll in China has climbed to 636 with 73 mortalities on Thursday, while the total number of confirmed cases crossed 31,000, Chinese health officials said on Friday.
Hubei province and its provincial capital Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus outbreak, reported 69 deaths on Thursday while Jilin, Henan, Guangdong and Hainan provinces reported one each, China's National Health Commission said.
As many as 73 people died on Thursday, while another 3,143 new cases of infection were reported, which took to 31,161 the total number of confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection from 31 provincial-level regions, the commission said.
Several international airlines, including Air India and IndiGo, have cancelled flights to China over fears of the virus spreading across the world, a move which Beijing described as being against World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines.
Several countries including India and the US have also announced travel bans.
PTI inputs