Jharkhand reported its first positive coronavirus case as a Malaysian woman who was found hiding along with 17 other foreigners in a mosque at Hindpidi in Ranchi tested positive.
“One woman has been tested positive on Tuesday. She found hiding in a mosque along with 24 others, including 17 foreigners,” said Nitin Madan Kulkarni Principal Health Secretary Jharkhand.
“All these people were taken out of the mosque and admitted to the quarantine centre at Khelgaon sports complex,” he added.
The Malaysian woman, who tested positive on Tuesday, had come to Ranchi from New Delhi on March 17 by Rajdhani Express. After reaching Ranchi, she directly went to the mosque on Nala Road of Hindpiri – a busy locality off Mahatma Gandhi Road. Ranchi Senior Superintendent of Police Anish Gupta said, “Police personnel has been deployed at Hindpiri and people of the area have been asked to stay indoors. People who came in contact with the woman who tested positive should get themselves tested.”
At least 46 residents of Ranchi had attended the ‘Tablighi Jamaat’- a religious event held in the first week of March at Nizamuddinin Delhi, in which several hundred people, including preachers from Indonesia, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia have participated; the police are tracing them, sources said.
According to the media reports, at least nine Indians who attended the religious congregation have reportedly died of the viral infection so far. Six of them were from Telangana, and one each from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Jammu & Kashmir.
The total number of coronavirus cases in India has surged to 1600. The novel COVID-19 has so far claimed 49 lives in the country. Fresh deaths were reported from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, over 100 coronavirus patients have recovered from the disease. At present, there are over 1400 active COVID-19 cases in the country.
