The COVID-19 pandemic has reached higher echelons in Madhya Pradesh, taking into its grip senior officials of the core team of the health department that was dealing with the dreaded infection.
On Saturday evening, principal secretary of health department Pallavi Jain Govil and additional director Dr Veena Sinha tested positive for the novel coronavirus, taking the tally of confirmed cases in the state capital to 17, a government release quoting Bhopal chief medical and health officer Dr Sudhir Kumar Deharia said. The total cases in the state now stand at 168.
With three officials of the health department now found positive, 12 IAS officers who had attended meetings and were in contact with them, have home quarantined themselves. Some have quarantined in hotels while others have done so in guest houses, sources said. Earlier on Friday, an IAS officer who is a director in the health department, had tested positive.
Chief secretary Iqbal Singh Bains has also sent out his sample for testing to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bhopal as a precautionary measure, sources said. He has also quarantined himself.
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who also attended the corona prevention meetings with the infected officers, has already self-quarantined at home, sources said.
Five persons, including four Tablighi Jamaat followers who attended the Nizamuddin congregation in Delhi, had tested positive on Saturday morning while a vegetable wholesaler tested positive along with the two officials in the evening. However, the first two positives from the capital—a journalist and his daughter—have recovered from the infection and have been discharged from the AIIMS, officials said.
Deharia said that reports of 34 samples were received on Saturday, of which 26 were negative. However, the samples of the two officials, four Jamaatis and two others were tested positive.
The Bhopal district collector declared one km radii in five more localities including the posh Char Imli locality, where the senior IAS officials and ministers live, as containment areas. The total number of containment areas in Bhopal have risen to 10 with additional two kms of buffer zone in each area. The CM House and the Raj Bhavan are already in the containment zone due to detection of positive cases in vicinity.
All persons in the containment zones are to be home quarantined for 14 days and 50 houses around the homes of the positive persons are to be screened and preventive measures taken, the collector said.
