NEW DELHI/HYDERABAD: Two more cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in the country, more than two weeks after three patients from Kerala who contracted the infection had recovered.
While one case has been confirmed in New Delhi, the other has been reported from Telangana, Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said in a press statement on Monday.
The detection of cases comes amidst a fresh scare of an outbreak in view of the rising number of cases in Italy and Iran.
The person from Delhi had travelled to Italy, while the other patient who has coronavirus infection has a recent travel history to Dubai, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said.
"Both the patients had self-reported after they developed symptoms. They tested positive. They are stable and being closely monitored," he said.
The Hyderabad-based 24-year-old software engineer, who tested positive, is working for a Bangalore-based software company. He was sent to Dubai by his company, where, officials assume, he contracted the virus from Hong Kong citizens.
Close to 80 people whom he came in contact with after landing in Bangalore on February 20, from where he travelled to Telangana in a bus on February 22, are being tracked by the Telangana Government.
The person in Delhi had self-reported at the RML hospital while the one in Hyderabad had initially gone to a private hospital and then was referred to a government hospital in the state.
As many as 25,738 people are under community surveillance across the country, Vardhan said as he advised people to avoid non-essential travel to Iran, Italy, South Korea and Singapore.
37 people across the country are currently hospitalised to avail treatment for coronavirus or COVID-19.
The minister further said the Indian government is in discussion with Iran and Italian authorities to evacuate Indians there.
Vardhan said that so far 3,217 samples have been tested out of which five tested positive for COVID-19 while reports of 23 are awaited.
Meanwhile, China has reported 42 new fatalities from the novel coronavirus outbreak, taking the death toll in the country to 2,912, Chinese health officials said on Monday, as the rapid spread of the epidemic wreaks havoc globally causing over 3,000 deaths and infecting more than 88,000 people.
(With PTI inputs)