Covid-19: 800 people in quarantine after Delhi mohalla clinic doctor, family test positive
The doctor tested positive on March 21 after a 38-year-old woman, with a travel history to Saudi Arabia, visited his clinic.
The Delhi government on Thursday ordered 14-day quarantine for 800 people after a doctor at a North East Delhi mohalla clinic tested positive for the coronavirus, Hindustan Times reported, citing Health Minister Satyendar Jain.
On Wednesday, the Shahdara sub-divisional magistrate had ordered all the patients who had visited the Maujpur clinic, run by the doctor between March 12 and 18, to home quarantine and contact a doctor if they exhibit any symptoms of the disease. The doctor tested positive on March 21 after a 38-year-old woman, with a travel history to Saudi Arabia, visited his clinic. The woman had returned to India on March 10.
The doctor’s wife and daughter, who also tested positive for Covid-19, have been at an isolation facility at Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital.
Mohalla clinics are community health centres set up by the Aam Aadmi Party for primary healthcare services. According to an official from the health department of Delhi government, the clinic has been shut down and is being sanitised.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced that mohalla clinics will still remain open as the poor would otherwise be forced to go to hospitals that are far or more expensive. “They will take precautions,” he added, according to NDTV.
Maujpur is one of the localities in North East Delhi where large-scale communal violence took place last month.
Meanwhile, Delhi’s health minister said that 36 people had Covid-19 in the national Capital. On Wednesday, five new coronavirus cases were reported in the city, taking the total number of cases to 35, with 23 being active. “In the past 24 hours there have been five new cases in Delhi,” Kejriwal had said while addressing a press conference. “One case is of a person who has come from abroad. And four cases are from his contact. So, there are a total of 35 cases in Delhi now.”
There are over 600 cases of coronavirus in the country. Of these, 10 people have died.