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Kerala launches contact-tracing programme to neutralise coronavirus threat
Coronavirus update: Kerala is also bracing itself for more cases with the results of medical tests of at least two dozen people expected by Monday evening.
A day after five fresh cases of coronavirus was detected in Pathanamthitta district, the Kerala government launched awareness campaigns and a vigorous exercise on Monday to trace all those who had come in contact with the five infected people of the same family.
The government has also braced itself as more results on tests of suspected cases are expected by the evening.
At least 200 people who came in contact with five infected people have been quarantined and many others will also be quarantined, district health officials said. Results of medical tests of at least two dozen people are expected by evening. Most of these people had come in direct contact with five infected - three returned from Italy and two others who contracted from them.
State health minister K K Shailaja, who rushed to the district, chaired a meeting late Sunday night and reviewed preparedness. In Pathanamthitta and neigbouring Kottayam, all educational intuitions will remain closed for three days in view of the threat.
All public functions have been cancelled in Pathanamthitta and people have been advised to defer marriages and other functions for the time being. People who returned from West Asia have also been advised not to attend any functions for two weeks. The state has at least 2 million people working in the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries.
Meanwhile, one of the infected persons who came from Italy, a 24-year-old youth, told news channels on phone that he and his parents never hid their travel history and had no symptoms while they boarded a flight from Italy.
“Fake information is doing the rounds. Some said we were forcibly shifted to the hospital that is not right. We fully co-operated with health officials and did not attend marriages or church functions as reported,” he said from his isolation ward.
The health minister had criticised them on Sunday for not revealing their travel history termed it “most irresponsible act” and warned action against those who hide their travel history.
Despite the mounting threat of coronavirus, the country’s largest women-only ritual ‘Attukal Pongala’ began on a pious note in Thiruvnanthapuram on Monday. Women devotees prepare a gruel made of rice, jaggery, coconut and ghee and offer it to the goddess of the Attukal temple. Minister Shailaja had appealed that those who have fever or cold should not participate in the Pongala and advised them to offer it in their homes.
Thousands of women converge on the last day of the festival to offer ‘Pongala’ to the presiding deity. In 2009 the temple had entered the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest annual gathering of women (2.5 million then) in a single function.
