After Tamil Nadu, Pune woman tests positive with no international travel history
New Delhi : A Pune woman has been tested positive to the novel coronavirus, the National Institute of Virology (NIV) said on Saturday. She is the second case in India after a Tamil Nadu man who has been tested positive without any travel history, hinting community transmission may have begun in India.
A health department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Hindustan Times that the 41-year-old woman is a resident of the Sinhgad road area, where Pune’s first two cases were reported. Pune accounts for 23 of the 50 cases in Maharashtra.
The official said it could be a case of local transmission.
The coronavirus spread has been categorized under four stages - Stage I is usually when cases are imported, without any local origin. Stage II is a local transmission, which means a section of people testing positive has come in contact with a patient having a travel history. Stage III is community transmission, which takes place when the source of an individual’s infection can’t be traced and isolated. Stage IV is an epidemic when there several clusters of the infection.
Her case comes to light hours after a Delhi man was tested positive to the coronavirus with no international travel history. The government is yet to establish the source of infection, sending alarm bells ringing.
The Union health ministry maintains that there is no evidence of community transmission of the infection so far. According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), India is still at stage II of the disease.
The Pune woman is critical and on a ventilator in an intensive care unit (ICU) at Bharati Hospital. She does not have travel history to a foreign country but visited Vashi in Navi Mumbai for a wedding on March 3, district collector Naval Kishore Ram said.
“We are investigating the case...She must have come in contact with someone who had foreign travel history,” Ram said, adding that the case has been referred to higher authorities.
