Covid-19: Delhi doctor’s wife, teen daughter also test positive for coronavirus

Coronavirus update: Two of these latest five cases are the wife (48) and daughter (17) of the 49-year-old Dilshad Garden doctor who worked in a Mohalla Clinic in Shahdara.

New Delhi: Delhi on Wednesday reported five new Covid-19 cases, taking the total to 35, according to officials from Delhi’s health department.

People stand in a queue to buy essential outside a grocery store during the first day of national lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus in New Delhi. (Sanchit Khanna/HT PHOTO)

Two of these latest five cases are the wife (48) and daughter (17) of the 49-year-old Dilshad Garden doctor who worked in a Mohalla Clinic in Shahdara. The doctor had tested positive for Covid-19 on March 21, after a 38-year-old woman who had returned from Saudi Arabia visited the clinic near his house.

Both had been kept in the isolation facility at Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital.

Another 35-year-old man from Jahangirpuri who also tested positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday had come in contact with the woman who had returned from Dilshad Garden. Four other family members of the woman had also tested positive for the disease earlier.

The other two people who tested positive for the infection on Wednesday — a 21-year-old and a 41-year-old man – were both residents of Sainik Farms area. Both had travelled abroad and had been quarantined in government facilities on return.

“They never visited their homes, they were directly taken to the quarantine facilities. They are admitted to Medanta and Rajiv Gandhi Superspeciality hospitals now,” according to an official from Delhi’s health department.

Five people in Delhi who had the viral infection have recovered. One person who tested positive had left for Singapore before his report came. So far, Delhi has reported only one death -- the 68-year-old mother of a man from Janakpuri who had returned from Italy.

Tracing the contacts

Healthcare workers are watching almost 3,000 people across the city who have come in contact with these 35 Covid-19 positive cases. Of these, over 2,300 people are those who came in contact with a 38-year-old woman and the doctor she had visited.

“Since the woman was diagnosed on March 18, the health workers have visited 450 to 500 houses – meaning at least 1,200 people – in the neighbourhood and all of them have been asked to remain in quarantine. Regular updates will be taken to check whether they develop any symptoms,” said an official from Delhi government health department.

Another 1,169 people who visited either the Shahdara Mohalla Clinic or the Dilshad Garden private clinic of the doctor who got the infection from the woman are also being monitored by the state health department.