ONGOLE: With two more persons testing positive for Covid-19 on Sunday morning, the tally of Covid-19 patients rose to 23 in Prakasam.
The fresh cases were that of a married couple from Chirala, who were linked with the religious congregation in Nizamuddin, Delhi as their son had attended the meeting.
Of the 23 patients in Prakasam district, 22 were either the attendees of the meeting or were their primary contacts.
The district authorities, who were on high alert, have expedited sanitising the affected areas and the house-to-house survey as well.
Nine coronavirus patients were from Ongole alone (one of them was recently discharged from RIMS after his results came negative in a test), seven from Chirala, three from Kandukur, two from Karamchedu and one each from Kanigiri and Chimakurthy.
The officials have also turned their focus in locating and isolating all Delhi returnees and their contacts. For this, the third district-wise survey is being taken up in full swing.
“Of the 134 Delhi returnees, 47 were admitted to the government hospital. Among them, 10 have tested positive for Covid-19 so far. Now, results of only three persons are awaited,” Dr Sree Ramulu, the hospital superintendent, said.
“As many 12 persons, who are the contacts of the attendees have tested positive till date. Results are awaited for 520 samples. 300 reports were received so far. Among them, 23 came as positive,” he added.
On what was the psychological impact on the people placed in quarantine, he said that the health officials were providing counselling to them. “On Saturday and Sunday, psychologists Dr Akhilesh, Dr Yedukondalu, Dr Koteswara Rao and Dr Keerthi counselled people kept in Ongole IIIT quarantine centre.”
On the other hand, the district authorities released around 270 migrant fishermen from Chirala, Kanigiri and Tangutur areas who recently returned from Manguluru coast in Karnataka.
They reached the district boarder near Peddapalem check post in Giddalur, where they were stopped by the officials and shifted to quarantine centres, where they lived for a week.