‘Sourceless’ infections puzzle team as more cases turn up

Thiruvananthapuram: The health team continues to be boggled by Covid-19 cases with unknown sources, including the latest positive case from Vanchiyoor. The team is awaiting confirmation on two more cases; a KSRTC driver and a person employed in a mobile shop. The team has learnt that the driver reportedly came from Thrissur and joined for duty at a city depot and developed symptoms five days ago.
Another case is also being monitored within the city and he is learnt to have travelled to Malappuram. Both persons have been isolated. However, it is not known whether containment of areas and isolation of contacts have been initiated in both these cases. In both these cases, information regarding source of infection has been vague.
Earlier, in the case of confirmation of infection in remand prisoners in three panchayats, containment and isolation were delayed for more than 24 hours before around 90 wards were declared as containment zones.
The Asha worker, who was tested positive on Sunday, has got around 700 contacts and with sample collection impractical for such a broad spread of contacts, the team is focusing mainly on houses she had visited for supply of drugs to patients under palliative care. The swab results of family members, high-risk contacts and a few primary contacts are expected on Tuesday. While the contact tracing has covered her travel from May 31 till June 14, the team is struggling to pinpoint the source of infection.
Although she has visited many houses during field work, symptomatic or suspected cases have not been reported in any of these houses. The team is probing the possibility of her contracting infection during her work hours at the tea shop which she runs along with her husband. The officials believe that the infection may have spread from the customers at the tea shop which may include frequent travellers to Tamil Nadu for transportation of goods.
As regarding the 67-year-old person who was tested positive at Vanchiyoor, the health team is dealing with two issues; lack of evident source of infection as well as lapses in testing protocol. District collector Navjot Khosa said that she has asked for a detailed epidemiological report from General Hospital and Medical College Hospital regarding the case. It is learnt that the patient was presented with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) ; a common lung disease twice at General Hospital and once at Medical College Hospital but swab samples were not taken although samples are collected from persons coming with acute respiratory distress.
District collector is learnt to have taken up the matter with health authorities in a meeting held on Monday as to how such a lapse could have occurred. The patient was admitted at General Hospital for four days and discharged and was again brought to General Hospital casualty on June 10 from where he was referred to Medical College Hospital. Although he was reported to have breathlessness, samples were not collected. The sources of infection in the case of Father KG Varghese, three remand prisoners, and an ambulance driver remains unknown.