The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Wednesday announced that a total of 28 positive cases of coronavirus have been detected in India so far. This includes the three coronavirus patients who were detected in Kerela and discharged from the hospital after they recovered last month.
The information was given by Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan in a press conference.
"On conducting contact tracing of the person tested positive in Delhi, we came to know that he infected 6 members of his family who are in Agra. All 6 members tested positive for coronavirus," he said, adding that "14 out of 21 Italian nationals have found positive for coronavirus. They have been sent to at Indo-Tibetan Border Police's (ITBP) quarantine facility in Chhawla."
Other than the three who recovered, all the cases were reported this week, including a man in Delhi who returned from Italy, six people from Agra who came in contact with him, a techie in Hyderabad who travelled to the city from Bengaluru after coming from Dubai, a group of 16 Italian tourisrs who travelled to Rajasthan, and one driver who was accompanying the tourists.
"We have requested all hospitals in Delhi to develop good quality isolation wards, in order to stay prepared if more cases of coronavirus are suspected in the national capital," he said.
The minister also announced that from now on, passengers on all international flights will be screened instead of just 12 countries that were listed earlier. "From now on, all flights and passengers will be part of universal screening, not just the 12 countries which we had listed earlier," he said.
"We had screened about 5,89,000 at our airports, over 15,000 at minor and major seaports and over 10 lakhs at the border of Nepal, till yesterday," Vardhan informed.
Talking on the reports of an increase in price of N95 masks, the minister said a mechanism to punsih such people should be implemented. "If people are taking advantage and misusing this time, then they should be labeled as black sheep," he said.