Tech firm evacuates 2 sites as coronavirus infection rises to 3 in Hyderabad

The number of coronavirus infections in Hyderabad rose to three on Wednesday with two persons testing positive in preliminary checks, an official statement from Telangana’s Public Health and Family Welfare department said.

The latest infection also forced a tech company to evacuate two of its campuses in the city after one of its employees tested positive.

The samples of the two persons have been sent to the National Virology Laboratory in Pune for confirmation.

Of the two, one has travel history to Italy. The other is a contact of the 24-year old techie who tested positive for the virus on Monday.

The two had undergone preliminary tests at Hyderabad’s state-run Gandhi hospital. The state public health and family welfare department said that the results of additional tests on the two sent to NVL, Pune are expected on Thursday.

More than 40 people who had come in contact with the affected techie have been kept under observation. On Monday, 47 people including these people had undergone the tests. While 45 tested negative, two tested positive.

One of the two person who has tested positive is an employee of DSM Shared Services and the company in a statement said, “We would like to inform you that one of our DSM colleagues in our Hyderabad office at Mindspace building has been diagnosed with Coronavirus. This diagnosis was confirmed early this morning. We are regularly checking on the colleague who is in hospital as well as family members to ensure everyone is doing fine.”

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The company’s offices in two tech campuses of the city Raheja Mindspace and Brightspace are being cleansed and disinfected thoroughly, the company added. It said till everything was sorted out it had asked its employees to work from home as the sites were closed.

The Telangana government has put in place 3,000 beds for isolation and close to 300 beds for patients requiring treatment.

The health officials also began publicising the preventive measures being taken to ensure that the virus doesn’t spread.

Meanwhile the BJP announced that a public rally of Union Home Minister Amit Shah which was scheduled for 15 March in Hyderabad has been postponed to a future date. Party’s Chief Spokesperson for Telangana said “This decision was taken to reduce mass physical contact of people during the public rally in the current context of serious precautions being undertaken by the Centre to arrest spread of Corona virus.”

A couple of schools in the area where the techie lives , remained shut as a precautionary measure.

Meanwhile, a software engineer from Hyderabad has been quarantined and is being treated at the district Government General Hospital in Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh after he complained of cough. He had recently gone to South Korea and was visiting his in-laws at Kakinada. District authorities have sent his samples for tests to Hyderabad and he is currently under observation, according to district collector Muralidhara Reddy.

The virus was first detected in India in Kerala in January when three people tested positive. All three later recovered.

The infection has surged recently with 14 people including an Indian testing positive at the ITBP’s quarantine facility at Chhawla near Delhi on Wednesday. They were among 21 Italians and three Indians at the quarantine facility. Two Italian tourists in Jaipur have also been confirmed positive for coronavirus.

Union health minister Harsh Vardhan has announced that passengers from all countries will be screened at airports as a precautionary measure to stop the virus from spreading.