On Sunday, February 2, India’s second confirmed case of the deadly coronavirus was reported from Kerala. The patient is stable and is being monitored in an isolation ward in the Alappuzha Medical College. The patient had a history of travelling to China and had returned to Kerala on January 24.
India’s first confirmed case of the virus was detected in Kerala’s Thrissur district on Thursday. She was a student of Wuhan University who had just returned. She was later shifted to an isolation ward set up in the Thrissur Medical College Hospital.
At present, 1,793 people who travelled from the virus affected countries are under surveillance in Kerala. While 70 among these have been admitted in selected isolation facilities, 1723 are under home isolation.
“A high alert is needed, but there is no need for panic. Isolation is the best medicine now. Both cases are stable,” Kerala Health Minister, K K Shailaja, said at a press conference on Sunday. “People who are on home quarantine have been asked not to come out for 28 days. The government will implement will it strictly,” she added.
In a fresh advisory, the Union Health Ministry has asked people to avoid travelling to China. The advisory also said that anyone with a travel history in China since January 15 could be quarantined.
With 57 deaths reported on Sunday alone, the death toll in China from the deadly coronavirus epidemic has hit 361. With this, the death toll has surpassed the 349 fatalities in the country due to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2002-03. At present, there are 17,205 confirmed and 21,558 suspected cases in China, whileglobally,more than 150 confirmed cases have been reported.
On Sunday, 56 deaths were reported from Hubei Province, the epicentre of the outbreak, and one from southwest China’s Chongqing. The first death outside China was also reported yesterday, in the Philippines. The patient, a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan, appeared to have been infected before arriving in the Philippines.
In just eight days, China has completed the construction of the new Huoshenshan(meaning ‘fire-god mountain’) hospital in Wuhan, to treat those affected by the virus. The hospital has 1,000 beds for patients with confirmed infections and will begin to receive patients from Monday.
#BREAKINGConstruction work of Huoshenshan Hospital,#Wuhan’s makeshift hospital built for treating pneumonia patients infected with the novel#coronaviruscompleted Sunday morning; the hospital will officially start services from Mondaypic.twitter.com/njpeB8xqmG
The country is also building a second hospital – Leishenshan (or ‘thunder-god mountain’) with 1,600 beds to treat the virus affected patients and is scheduled to be completed on February 5.
Meanwhile, 654 Indians were air-lifted from China’s Wuhan Province in two batches. While 324 Indians were evacuated on Saturday, 323 Indians and seven Maldivian citizens were evacuated on Sunday. As four Indians reported high fever, they could not board the second flight.
The evacuees have been quarantined at an isolation camp in Manesar, near Delhi. The people have been asked to wear three-layered masks and undergo daily medical examinations. If they show no symptoms after 14 days, they will be allowed to go home.
Meanwhile, a video of a group of men, staying at the facility, has surfaced online, in which they can be seen singing and dancing while wearing masks.
Here CoronaVirus dancing on Haryanavi songs 👇🏽👇🏽https://t.co/hYChOTGLN6
Also Read:Coronavirus Outbreak: WHO Declares Global Health Emergency As Death Toll Hits 213