Delhi coronavirus: The mohalla clinic doctor was tested positive for coronavirus

Highlights Delhi doctor's wife, daughter infected with coronavirus

Doctor worked at mohalla clinic in northeast Delhi's Maujpur

Nearly 900 people isolated for 14 days

After a doctor of a mohalla or community clinic in Delhi tested positive for coronavirus, close to 900 people who came in contact him have been quarantined, a city minister said on Thursday. The chain of infection started with a woman who returned from Saudi Arabia on March 10, and visited the clinic with symptoms of COVID-19.

They have all been isolated for 14 days, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain told NDTV. He said the number of coronavirus or COVID-19 cases in Delhi is now 36.

The doctor's wife and teen daughter tested positive for the virus on Wednesday.

The doctor was exposed to the virus when the 38-year-old woman visited the clinic on March 12, the minister said. Five days later, she tested positive. That day, the doctor was also admitted in hospital.

Five more persons have tested positive for the virus from direct contact with the woman - her mother, brother and two daughters, and a relative who picked her up from the Delhi airport on her arrival. Some 74 persons in her neighbourhood are also under watch.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said mohalla clinics would stay open regardless of this case, as the poor would otherwise be forced to seek out hospitals that are far away and costly. "They will take precautions," he said.

All healthcare staff of the Delhi government who are involved in tending to COVID-19 patients will be tested for coronavirus infection, the state government has said. Those who are involved in collecting samples of suspected patients will also be tested.

Coronavirus: India is under a 21-day lockdown amid the spread of the coronavirus

The doctor worked at a mohalla clinic in Maujpur in northeast Delhi.

Mohalla clinics are community health centres set up by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi mainly for the economically weaker.

Any spread of the virus in the densely populated Maujpur, which was incidentally among the areas worst hit by the Delhi violence, could be potentially disastrous.

District officials have ordered that those who visited the mohalla clinic between March 12 and 18 must stay in home quarantine for 15 days.

On Wednesday, 90 new coronavirus cases were reported in India, pushing the total number of cases to 606, while the number of deaths was 10, according to the Union Health Ministry.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday ordered a national lockdown for 21 days and said no one must leave their homes in that period. This was necessary to break the chain of transmission, he said.