Coronavirus: Three people from Puducherry kept under home quarantine on return from China

Three people, including two medical students, are under observation after their recent return from China where the novel coronavirus has claimed 132 lives so far, officials said on Wednesday.

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Director of Health and Family Welfare S Mohan Kumar told reporters here that the three- a businessman and two students purusuing medicine had reported their travel history to China and have been kept under home quarantine as a precautionary measure. The businessman hails from Karaikal while the students belong to Puducherry and Karaikal. The director said although "none of them is symptomatic, they have all been kept under home quarantine as a precautionary measure. They would be under the supervision of surveillance officers for 28 days."

Mohan Kumar said the Health department had taken necessary precautionary steps to improve surveillance and to quarantine people with travel history to China. He said government run hospitals in the four regions of the Union Territory Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam and also privately run medical colleges have been directed to earmark six beds exclusively for novel coronavirus (nCOV) cases.

The director said an isolation ward with eight beds has been set up at the government run hospital for chest diseases in neighbouringGorimedu. All private medical colleges and hospitals have been asked to send travellers returning from China with complaints of upper respiratory tract infections to the isolation ward in the hospital for chest diseases. The centrally-sponsored Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER) hospital here has been designated as a tertiary care centre for patients who require additional care. Samples of suspected patients will be collected at JIPMER and sent to the National Institute of Virology at Pune, the official said.

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