Isolation ward at RML expanded to accommodate 5 more suspected coronavirus patients

Five more people suspected to have the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) have been admitted to the isolation ward of the city’s Dr Ram Manohar Lohia hospital Thursday

Five more people suspected to have the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) have been admitted to the isolation ward of the city’s Dr Ram Manohar Lohia hospital Thursday night. This takes the total a number of people admitted to the isolation ward to 13.

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The first three patients to be admitted to the ward on January 27 were discharged after their reports came back negative.

“Five more patients were admitted to the isolation ward created for the people suspected to have coronavirus on Sunday. Two people had been admitted to the ward yesterday as well,” said the hospital spokesperson Smriti Tiwari.

India reported the second positive case of novel coronavirus from Kerala on Sunday. Over 650 Indians were flown out of Wuhan on Saturday and Sunday on two special Air India flights. They are currently in quarantine at two facilities set up by the Army and ITBP in Delhi.

All five people who were admitted to RML hospital with symptoms of respiratory tract infection and fever are men between the ages of 26 and 37 years. Two of the five had travelled to China in October and returned to India on January 25 and 29. The others had been living in China and returned back between January 23 and 25.

The samples of all the 13 patients, including those who came on Sunday, have been sent to the National Institute of Virology, Pune. So far, the lab has tested 130 samples from across the country, of which two from Kerala were found to be positive.

The nCoV-2019 has infected around 14,000 people and killed 300 in China. The first coronavirus death from outside China was reported from Philippines on Saturday, where a 44-year-old man from Wuhan died.

The RML hospital, which is the nodal hospital for treating and quarantining persons suspected to have coronavirus in Delhi, had to expand its isolation ward on Sunday. Initially, the ward had been set up for eight persons.

“Now, the facility has been expanded and there are 32 beds in the isolation ward,” said Tiwari.

Talking about the preparations, the hospital medical superintendent Dr Minakshi Bhardwaj had told HT, “We have an isolation ward ready, with ICU facility in case needed. Staff to handle this ward has been assigned. We have also ensured that there is enough personal protective equipment for the staff and all infection control measures are followed. Basically, similar to what we do for H1N1.”

Currently, people with a travel history to China who show symptoms of acute respiratory ailment, fever and cough are being kept in isolation till their results come out to be negative. The 2019-novel coronavirus is a new viral respiratory infection first identified in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China on 31 December 2019.