On Wednesday, a 45-year-old man from Adoor in Pathanamthitta district of Kerala, with recent travel history to Dubai, had tested positive for the deadly Wuhan Coronavirus. Reportedly, he had shown no symptoms of the disease.
The man was kept under observation at his home. He had travelled to Thiruvantapuram via Bangalore from Dubai. The district administration is now tracking people who might have come in contact with the infected patient. The case has now added to the woes of the district health authorities amidst growing demand for collecting samples from 7,361 people currently under home quarantine in the wake of Coronavirus outbreak.
District Collector PB Nooh said, “This person had never developed any symptoms, including fever or cough. But, his samples were taken since there were widespread complaints that he was defying quarantine guidelines and was moving around. It was a surprise when he tested positive.”
Dr Amar Fettle, State Nodal Officer for Infectious Diseases, clarified, “In this case, there might have been some mild symptoms or he might have taken some drug for fever. All these might have suppressed the symptoms.”To diffuse the situation, the Health authorities had sent a few random samples of people under observation at their homes for testing. Many were found to have tested negative for the deadly pathogen.
In India, the coronavirus outbreak reached later than several other countries. The first case in India was reported on the 30th of January. The first case came from Kerala of a student who was studying at the Wuhan University. Since then, the pandemic has grown manyfold. As of today, in India, there have been 724 positive cases of the Wuhan Coronavirus, including 66 cured and 17 dead.
Now, the data from Covid19IndiaOrg analysed by Dr Anupam Singh, a doctor of internal medicine and dabbles in public health data science, has revealed that out of the several cases in India, 300+ cases are of those who had a travel history abroad and out of those 300 cases, 142 positive cases (roughly 50%) in India were of those who had returned from the Middle East. One can also see from Dr Singh’s research how in India, one person who does local transmission ends up spreading the infection to anywhere between 2 to 2.7 people on average.
