COVID-19: Two more positive cases in Puducherry

The patients are asymptomatic and are being looked after by a team of doctors at the Government Hospital for Chest Diseases, Gorimedu, officials said

Barricades placed at the inter-state border near Gorimedu during the lockdown in Puducherry, where 2 people have now tested positive for COVID-19

Of the three persons from Ariankuppam in Puducherry, who returned from

attending a religious conference at Nizamuddin in New Delhi, two have tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday.

The patients, aged 37 and 51, are asymptomatic and are being looked after by a team of doctors at the Government Hospital for Chest Diseases, Gorimedu, Director of Health and Family Welfare Services S. Mohan Kumar told The Hindu .

The test results of the third person from Ariankuppam is expected any time. The three were traced and kept under isolation on Tuesday after reports of a large number of people who visited the Islamic centre in the national capital getting infected, he said.

“All three are asymptomatic even now. They returned to their village on March 24. We have started contact tracing from Tuesday itself,” he said.

According to a government source, three more persons hailing from Katterikuppam, Thirubhuvanai and Thiruvandarkoil who returned after attending the conference at Nizamuddin have been traced. Two of them have been kept at the isolation ward in a private medical college and the other at the Chest Clinic. Their throat swab was sent to Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research for testing to check for COVID-19, the source said.

Three more persons, two from Karaikal and one from Yanam, who attended the religious function have been traced and shifted to the isolation wards, the source said.

With two more testing positive, the total number of COVID-19 cases in the Union Territory has gone up to 3. The first case was reported in the enclave of Mahe with a 68-year-old woman who returned from Saudi Arabia testing positive for the virus. She was discharged on March 28 after she tested negative for the virus.