Woman in Haryana’s Panchkula tests positive for coronavirus

CHANDIGARH: A 40-year-old woman in Panchkula in Haryana has tested positive for coronavirus, prompting the authorities to launch a health check in the slum where she lived with her family, officials said on Sunday.

With this, the number of cases in the state reaches eight — four from Gurgaon and one each from Panchkula, Faridabad, Panipat and Sonipat.

The slum in Panchkula, with a population of around 9,000, has been cordoned off and residents have been asked to quarantine themselves in their homes, they said.

Health officials in Panchkula are checking each household and anyone with cough and fever has been asked to inform the authorities immediately, the officials said.

The woman, who works as a masseuse in Chandigarh, got infected from a young woman who had recently returned from the UK.

The Chandigarh resident later on tested positive for coronavirus, becoming the Union territory’s first patient.

The Panchkula woman had been traced based on details given by the Chandigarh patient, the officials said.

She has been kept in isolation, they said, adding that her son has tested negative but is still being kept in a different isolation ward.

Samples of her other family members too have been taken, the officials said.

A Health department official in Panchkula told media persons that four teams of healthcare officials, besides 50 police personnel, have been deployed in the slum colony.

All residents of the colony, a majority of whom work as domestic helps, labourers and autorickshaw drivers, are being screened.

Civic authorities have sanitised the area.