Three employees of Serum Institute of India have tested positive for coronavirus disease and they, along with their immediate contacts, have been admitted to Noble Hospital. They hail from nearby villages in Purandar tehsil of Pune district, which have now been sealed. A total of five persons have tested positive from Purandar tehsil. Adar Poonawalla, chief executive officer of Serum Institute of India, told The Indian Express, “We had made provisions to mitigate this. But once new factories open up, there are bound to be new cases of coronavirus. This is the new normal and there has been no disruption in the work. Everything else is properly taken care of. Departments where cases of Covid-19 were found have been shut. High-risk contacts were tested and quarantined and then brought back to work after seven days. This is the new protocol and every other company will have to adopt this strategy to handle the risk of detecting cases and then restart”. H K Sale, executive director at Noble Hospital, said 27 high-risk contacts of the three persons have been traced. They have been quarantined and their swabs will be sent for further tests. Saswad city in Purandhar and roads leading to Kodit Khurd village were blocked after it was declared a containment zone, following the detection of another person who returned from Dharavi and was found to have Covid-19. A notice informing those wanting to visit the village has also been placed at the road blockade According to Purandar Block Development Officer Milind Tonape, four villages - Supe, Jawala Arujun village, Veer Gaon abd Kodit Budruk- along with Saswad Municipal Council, have been sealed. A constable who had returned from Mumbai had tested positive and hails from Veergaon. He has been admitted to the district hospital at Aundh while nine of his close contacts have tested negative for the disease. One more person had returned from Dharavi in Mumbai to Kodit Budruk and has tested positive for the disease. His contacts have also been tested. At semi-urban and rural areas around Pune, district health authorities are strictly monitoring each and every person who is returning to these areas from Mumbai, Pune, Aurangabad and other cities, Ayush Prasad, CEO of Pune Zilla Parishad, told The Indian Express. “There has been limited spread of Covid-19 in the local areas so far and 80 per cent of the cases are mainly of people who have returned from other cities,” he said. Till May 26, there have been seven deaths and 203 reported cases of the disease across the 13 tehsils of Ambegaon, Baramati, Bhor, Daund, Haveli, Indapur, Junnar, Khed, Maval, Mulshi, Purandar, Shirur and Velhe. Strict measures by the administration have led to the home quarantine of 55,545 persons since May 15 after they returned from areas in the red zone category. There are a total of 3,990 persons across 644 institutional quarantine centres set up at the village level, said a district health officer.
