Elderly couple test positive for coronavirus in Mumbai

Those who have tested positive in Mumbai and Pune are either passengers of the March 1 Dubai-Mumbai flight or came in close contact with them.

Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said people living within a 3-km radius of confirmed patients will be screened for suspected symptoms as a method of cluster containment of the virus. BMC officials said six residents of Mumbai, who were part of the Dubai tour, approached Kasturba hospital on Tuesday after the Pune couple travelling with them tested positive for coronavirus. This included two couples and a senior citizen and her granddaughter.

“An elderly couple tested positive… while one had mild symptoms, the other is asymptomatic. They are stable and undergoing symptomatic treatment,” Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani said.

Civic officials said the couple has not travelled in a local train since they arrived in Mumbai on March 1. “They have travelled by car… this limits viral transmission,” an official said.

The BMC began tracing close contacts of the couple. The couple has three members in their family, including a male domestic help. They have been quarantined at home. “We are tracing doctors they met before approaching us, also people they met in the last 10 days since they arrived,” Kakani said. The BMC is trying to procure the list of passengers who flew in the Dubai-Mumbai flight, officials said.

The housing society where the couple stayed will be advised home quarantine with civic officials reaching out to the neighbourhood to check for cases of cough, cold, pneumonia and breathlessness. The local nursing homes and hospitals have been advised to refer all symptomatic patients, in the 3 km radius of the couple’s house, to the government hospital.

Dr Archana Patil, additional director in Directorate of Health Services, said the 37 people from Maharashtra who were part of the Dubai tour have been traced. “Of the 40, three are from Karnataka. The rest have been quarantined at home.”

Maharashtra has screened 1.38 lakh people so far at airports in Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur. Of them, 349 people with symptoms have been isolated.