HYDERABAD: Two students who had returned from the Chinese city of Wuhan recently, were suspected of Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in the city on Thursday. Doctors said though the students showed symptoms, their condition was stable.
Reports awaited
Meanwhile, reports of nine samples of suspected cases, which were sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) Pune, are still awaited by state authorities. Authorities are hoping to begin testing for the virus in the city within three days, and after a trial, they will stop sending samples to NIV Pune.
“On request of the Telangana government, the central government has agreed to send test kits to Hyderabad,” said Vijay Kumar, State nodal officer
Gandhi Medical College
“The testing will be done at the ICMR lab facility at Gandhi Medical College within two-three days. Till today, we have been sending samples to NIV Pune, but once the kits arrive, one test cycle will be done here and then the sample will be sent to Pune. If they say everything is okay, we will stop sending the samples to Pune and continue the tests here,” added Kumar.
The second round of testing the samples (within 48 hours of the first test) as ordered by the Centre has not been done on samples from the state so far, he said.
The seven patients (including a family of three) who had self-reported to state-run Fever Hospital on Tuesday, were discharged on Thursday morning as their symptoms had subsided.
While their reports are yet to be received by state authorities, the suspected patients who have been discharged will be followed up by rapid response teams of the state Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP).
“The suspected patients have been advised home isolation for 14 days. Respective district medical health officers have been informed and they will be monitoring them at their homes,” said the official.