As Kalaburagi Victim’s Relative Tests Positive, Karnataka On A War Footing To Deal With Coronavirus Outbreak 

The threat is real, the enemy invisible ‘but the efforts nevertheless are on a war footing and we will do whatever it takes to deal with this pandemic’, says Karnataka’s Minister for Health B Sriramulu speaking to Swarajya as he returns from Kalaburagi, that saw the first corona-related death in the country.

Assuring that there was no need to fear, he says 10 teams are already working on contact tracing in the Kalaburagi family case. “ 71 members of the family are being monitored. Of these, four who were being suspected were sent for testing, three of whom have tested negative,” he said on his return from having inspected the facilities at the isolation ward at the District Hospital in Kalaburagi.

Late evening (Sunday), the fourth member (daughter of the deceased) whose report was pending, has been confirmed to be positive. “But since the patient is already in isolation and is being constantly monitored, we have faith the patient will recover soon,” he said in an update.

“In Kalaburagi, we are doing community monitoring in a radius of 3 km of the deceased’s family and have also created another buffer of 5 km. Seven members of the family have been kept in isolation at the district hospital. Around 56 primary as well as 400 secondary contacts of the deceased have been identified,” he explained.

“Right now, there is no thought of inducting private hospitals for the treatment of Corona patients. But we have 2,000 beds across the state at all the district hospitals but together, as well as 350 beds at the BSF facility and 150 of the Indian army. All private hospitals have been asked to also inform the designated hospitals of any suspect cases as soon as they register one,” said Sriramulu, adding that the high level advisory group meeting that includes Dr Devi Shetty of Narayana Hospitals and Sudha Murthy of Infosys Foundation may be held on Monday. Further details are awaited.

Ten lines have been set aside by the toll-free health-helpline Arogya Sahayavani ‘104’ to contact employees of IT/BT companies and others who have returned from countries having Covid 19 pandemic and their health status is being regularly monitored. The helpline has received around 20,000 calls on its 20 lines reserved for calls relating to the virus.

As of Sunday evening, five Covid-19 positive patients are in isolation at the designated hospital in Bangalore and are said to be stable. And a total of 109,132 passengers have been screened in Karnataka at various entry points. This includes 75,730 passengers being screened at the Bengaluru international airport, including 3,004 who were screened on Saturday alone, and 27,963 passengers at the Mangalore international airport.

The Mangalore and Karwar seaports too have been alerted and have screened 5,439 passengers till Sunday.

Here is a list of district hospitals across the state that can be contacted:

Sriramulu had tweeted earlier about Kannadigas stuck in Milan who had appealed to him to be brought back to India. In this regard, he said, the authorities concerned had been contacted for the same and they would be soon brought back.

“Sixteen persons coming from other countries including Srilanka, US, UAE, and Netherlands are also being monitored,” he added.