Himachal reports seven new COVID-19 cases, doctor tests positive

Tribune News Service
Dharamsala, May 12

Himachal Pradesh reported six more coronavirus cases on Tuesday, taking the infection tally in the state to 66, a senior health official said. 

Special Secretary (Health) Nipun Jindal said four fresh cases were reported from Kangra district and two from Hamirpur district. 

Two men, aged 30 and 50 years, from Hamirpur's Bajrol area have tested positive. Both are asymptomatic and returned from Delhi on May 1, he said.  

Four more cases in Kangra took the district's COVID-19 tally to 14.

A 62-year-old tea vendor from Paprola, a 50-year-old head constable posted at Panchruhi police station, a 30-year-old more from Jamanabad village and a person from Kulthi Panchayat, near Kangra, who recently returned from Jalandhar, all tested positive.

Kangra has now has nine active cases, four cured and one death.

The Tanda Medical College was suspended as a coronavirus positive patient roamed about in the hospital over two hours.

Sources said that a resident of Kulthi Panchayat, near Kangra town, had returned to the district on May 19th.

The health authorities on Monday took his sample for testing. He was asked to be under home quarantine.

He was an asymptomatic patient.

However, he came to Tanda Medical College on Tuesday morning and stayed in the hospital for more than two hours.

When authorities learnt that he was a coronavirus patient, they tried to locate him. They came to know that he was at Tanda Medical College.

The authorities immediately suspended the OPD at the medical college. All the patients and their attendants were taken to a hall and sanitised. However, this has created trouble for the health authorities, as they would, now, have to test and keep all the patients and their attendants, who were present, under quarantine in Tanda medical college.

Local police are contemplating to register a case against the coronavirus positive patient, who violated the quarantine conditions and threatened the life of others.

Panic in Paprola and Palampur was created, when a resident of Paprola, who used to run a tea shop near Palampur, also tested positive.

The person has no recent travel history.

He ran the tea shop near Palampur for two days. The authorities are trying to identify the people, who may have been in direct contact, with the COVID-19 patient.

The third patient who tested positive was a head constable posted in Panchrukhi police station. He does not have a travel history. The head constable was on duty at the government quarantine centre, which is where he is likely to have got the corona infection.

The man who tested positive in Jamanabad had recently come back to his village from Panchkula.

A 28-year-old doctor from Tanda Medical College, who was working in a COVID facility of the health institute, has also tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday.

He was presently under quarantine. This is the fifth COVID-19 positive case detected in Kangra district on Tuesday, taking the number of positive patients to 15 in the district.

The state has 24 active cases of the virus---nine in Kangra, six in Chamba, four in Hamirpur, two in Bilaspur, and one each in Mandi, Una and Shimla. 

Thirty-nine people have recovered from the infection in the hill state. With PTI inputs

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