MUMBAI/PUNE: With the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak spreading, five persons were put under surveillance in the state soon after they returned from China to the city airport in the last 48 hours. Two of them, exhibiting mild cough and cold symptoms, were admitted to Kasturba Hospital in Chinchpokli , the city’s main isolation facility, late on Thursday as a precaution, said officials.Three of the five are residents of Jogeshwari, Kalyan and Nalasopara, and two are from Pune. “Since the passengers from Kalyan and Nalasopara showed signs of mild cold and cough, we asked them to get admitted to Kasturba Hospital so that we can run some checks and rule out any infection,” said BMC executive health officer Dr Padmaja Keskar.State epidemiologist Dr Pradeep Awate said they had exhibited no specific coronavirus symptoms. Two of the five passengers had been to Wuhan, the epicentre of the novel coronavirus outbreak, which has spread to several countries, including US, Thailand, Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia . “Those two passengers are also currently asymptomatic like the other three, who had been to other parts of China,” said Awate.Sources said the Nalasopara traveller had stayed in Foshan city — almost a 1,000km south from Wuhan — for six days. As per state records, the person left China on January 21and arrived in Mumbai airport at 4am on Wednesday. The local health officer said the woman complained of bodyache and cold when health officials contacted them, but didn’t have fever, sore throat, abdominal pain or any other symptoms.The Kalyan resident was in Guangzhou, also almost a 1,000km south of Wuhan, for six days — from January 16 to22. Officials said the 36-year-old was suffering from cold and cough even before he travelled to China. He developed fever on January 18, which subsided by January 20 after he took medicines, but he did not fully recover. On January 22, he landed in Mumbai. “He had cold and cough. A complete blood count test showed normal results. None of his family members showed any symptom,” said an official. Dr Ramesh Bharmal, director of BMC’s major hospitals, said their samples will be sent to Pune’s National Institute of Virology for testing.A total of 1,323 passengers returning from China and other affected countries have so far been screened at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport since January 18. “Of them, the five passengers who are being tracked are permanent residents of Maharashtra . The rest left for their home states soon after arriving in Mumbai,” said Awate.Usually, any airborne virus has the incubation period of seven to 14 days. “But since this is a new variant of the coronavirus, we don’t have conclusive information. We have doubled the tracking period to 28 days, to be on a safer side,” he added.On Monday, the state health authorities issued an advisory for identifying, isolating and monitoring passengers returning from China and other coronavirus outbreak affected Asian countries. “A person with a travel history to the affected countries, mainly China, in the last 14 days or more and presenting with influenza-like illness or severe, acute respiratory illness (SARI) is a suspected patient of the virus. The symptoms include cough, shortness of breath, fever and respiratory problems,” said Awate.