Kolkata: A Chinese national on tourist visa in the city has been kept in an isolation ward, after she complained of high fever and rashes, raising suspicion that the woman could have contracted the deadly novel coronavirus, officials said here Monday. The woman was taken Sunday to the isolation ward at the Beleghata ID Hospital in the northern part of the city, the officials informed.
“The woman has no symptoms of novel coronavirus as of now. However, we have sent her tests results to the ICMR National Institute of Virology in Pune,” West Bengal Principal Secretary of Health Vivek Kumar informed.
Kumar said the Chinese tourist has mild fever and stomach ache, symptoms that do not necessarily suggest presence of the novel coronavirus, which has claimed at least 81 lives in China and put millions under quarantine.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the common symptoms of the virus strain include respiratory symptoms such as fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties.
“She has been travelling for quite some time and came to India from Madagascar a few months ago… As a part of precautionary measure, we have isolated the woman till her reports arrive,” Kumar said.
The West Bengal Health Department has stepped up vigil in all the districts and in Kolkata, after the Union Health Ministry issued guidelines to prevent spread of the virus.
“Any person arriving in the city from abroad is being screened at the airport,” another official of the department said.
Meanwhile in a late development Monday night, a Thai woman who had been suffering from fever breathed her last at another hospital. Sources said she had been admitted to the hospital Saturday with high fever and had been put on the ventilator Sunday. She breathed her last Monday afternoon.
Sources at the hospital stated that investigations are on to find out whether the cause of her death has been the dreaded coronavirus.
The Union Health Ministry said Monday that health teams have been deployed in areas along the border with Nepal at Panitanki in West Bengal and Jhulaghat and Jauljibi in Uttarakhand’s Pithoragarh.
PNN & Agencies