Seven from Amberpet family test COVID positive, mystery over virus spreader
By Coreena Suares Published on 5 May 2020 9:51 AM GMT
Hyderabad: Seven members of a family living in Amberpet of Hyderabad tested positive for Covid-19. Of the seven, one is a mechanical supervisor at Musheerabad’s TS RTC bus depot and another is a young constable with the crime branch of Medipally police station.
The joint family has no international or domestic travel history. The seven infected include a 75-year-old, the eldest among the group and a 14-year-old, the youngest of all. All the seven were shifted to Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad.
Even as the family is undergoing treatment, the source of the virus is a mystery.
The wife of the mechanical supervisor told NewsMeter: “On April 25, my husband fell ill and was taken to King Koti Hospital for treatment. Three days later, my brother-in-law’s son (the constable) ran high fever, accompanied with cough. Tests conducted by the RTC department revealed that my husband was Covid-19 positive. It is unbelievable, because he handles a team of 4-5 workers and his job is to supervise cargo buses and involves less exposure. It must be my brother-in-law’s son who caught the infection because he was put on lockdown duty.”
Newsmeter spoke to B. Anji Reddy, the inspector at Medipally police station, about the job his subordinate was assigned.
He said, “Since the lockdown was imposed, the constable was put on duty at the check posts. Barring vehicles checks, no other regular duty was assigned to him. Following his medical results, nine cops have been placed under quarantine and all have been tested negative. We have stopped citizens from entering the police station.”
Significantly, neither the RTC supervisor nor the cop, supposed to have contracted the virus in the family, have travel history. They are neither primary nor secondary contacts of Covid-19 patients.
Telangana has reported several mysterious cases on virus spreaders within a single family. One such is the Malakpet ganj’s traders case, where 10 from one family have been tested positive and two succumbed to the infection.
