india

Updated: Mar 22, 2020 14:48 IST

A Pune woman who tested positive for coronavirus and went on to infect four more people even as her source of her own infection remains untraceable so far, could be a ‘possible’ community transmission case of coronavirus, officials at the Pune district administration said Sunday.

Pune recorded four more cases on Sunday taking the count in district to 27. Maharashtra’s health minister Rajesh Tope said the number of positive cases in the state has gone up to 74 with 10 more cases including Pune’s four cases reported since Saturday evening.

According to health officials at Pune Municipal Corporation, four of the six first contacts of the woman have tested positive. The four include her family members who will be brought to PMC’s Naidu hospital from Bharati Hospital where the woman is admitted and undergoing treatment. The rest of her family is currently quarantined in that hospital. The woman is currently in critical condition and on ventilator support.

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“The four include the patient’s son, brother-in-law, sister and sister’s daughter. The patient’s husband and daughter too have shown symptoms like fever,” said a doctor at Bharati Hospital.

The 41-year-old woman does not have a history of travel to foreign countries and had tested positive for Covid-19 on March 17. A central team visited Pune on Saturday to investigate the possible sources who could have infected the woman, a resident of Sinhgad road area from where Pune’s first two Covid-19 cases were reported on March 10.

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The woman attended a wedding at Navi Mumbai earlier this month and had also used public transport to go to Aangandwadi at Panshet area in Pune where she works as a sevika. A driver who drove her family from Navi Mumbai to Pune is also quarantined.

Divisional commissioner Deepak Mhaisekar on Saturday said, about four family members who came in direct contact with the patient have been isolated at their homes while driver of cab she hired has been quarantined at Naidu hospital.

“We have already traced over 100 people who had come in contact with the patient and also contact tracing those who came in contact with the four family members of the patient. This number may run in hundreds. A Central government team has visited the hospital where the woman is admitted to decide on whether the case is of local transmission or community transmission. Officials believe that it could be due to local transmission if the patient came in contact with any positive patient unknowingly,” Mhaisekar said.

‘Community transmission’ is the third stage of the pandemic which India desperately wants to avoid. The pandemic is currently in its second stage in India.