90 evacuees test positive in 72 hours in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh

HYDERABAD/VIJAYAWADA: Authorities battling the spread of novel coronavirus in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh said 90 foreign returnees have tested positive for the deadly virus in the last 72 hours, pushing the overall caseload significantly in the two states. People evacuated from various countries began arriving in the two states from May 9.
While Telangana reported three deaths and 66 new Covid-19 cases, including 18 evacuees, positive on Monday, AP reported 89 cases — 45 among them turned out to be foreign returnees.
“Just when the two states were looking to pull back the numbers, many foreign returnees from countries such as Kuwait have resulted in 90 cases over the past two-three days,” said a senior health expert, spearheading the Covid-19 fightback.
With the Centre reducing the institutional quarantine from 14 days to only seven days, the job is cut out for health department officials to monitor them at home for the next seven days of home quarantine, said experts.
Of the 66 new cases in Telangana on Monday, 31 are from the greater Hyderabad, 18 are foreign evacuees,15 migrant labours and one each from Rangareddy and Maharashtra.
With the latest positive cases, the total count of Covid-19 positive cases in the state rose to 1,920, of which 1,162 patients have recovered. On Monday, 72 patients who had completely recovered were discharged by the state health authorities.
There are 700 active cases of Covid-19 in the state, undergoing treatment at various designated hospitals and in view of the increasing cases of migrants, the state health department has urged the public to inform local authorities in case they identify of any new person coming into towns and cities.
In Andhra Pradesh, the cumulative tally rose to 2,886. As many as 62 foreign returnees were diagnosed with the pandemic in the last two days, including the 45 on Monday.
The sate on Monday also decided to place persons coming from high incidence areas such as Surat, Ahmedabad and Mumbai in an institutional quarantine facility for seven days, even if they test negative for Covid-19.
Even weeks after the first few cases started emerging with Chennai’s Koyambedu market linkages in Andhra Pradesh, seven new cases reported on Monday were traced back to the same Covid-19 epicentre of Tamil Nadu.
There are currently 946 active cases in the state, including 117 Covid-19 cases from other states. The state has not witnessed any coronavirus-related death in the last two days.
A five-month-old boy from Cheruvuru village in Rampachodavaram agency area in East Godavari district also contracted the virus. The infant is reportedly the youngest Covid-19 patient of the state.
“The parents of the kid approached the regional hospital in Rampachodavaram on May 21 when the latter was suffering from fever and cold symptoms. He was then referred to the Rajahmundry hospital and subsequently to the Government general hospital, Kakinada. The officials have identified 150 suspected people in Cheruvuru and the neighbouring villages for coronavirus screening,” an official said.