Coronavirus in India: Third Keralite victim too touched Kolkata while returning home, Bengal health dept on high alert

After gathering the information, West Bengal health department has alerted all its machineries again to trace the third victim's co-passengers who traveled with him from Guangzhou to Kolkata on Jan 25, according to senior health department officials.

"We have come to know that the Keralite medical student of Guangzhou university, who has been officially declared as the third Novel Coronavirus infected in India, touched Kolkata airport on January 25 before taking his flight to Kerala, exactly what Kerala's first to nCoV victims did on January 23," a senior official of Bengal health department told IBNS.

"We have again directed our officers to immediately trace out the people who took seats very close to the nCoV victim in the aircraft from Guangzhou to Kolkata, and to test their saliva samples as soon as possible," the official added.

According to sources in the health department, primarily two co-passengers, who were seated with the victim in a row in the flight, and five crew members of the aircraft have been identified.

"Five crew members of the flight from Guangzhou to Kolkata have already been kept under observation and we have made contact with a co-passenger of the flight," a health department official said.

"The man, who is a resident of West Bengal and was in China for more than 30 days, has requested us to allow him few more days to visit Beleghata I.D. hospital for saliva test," he added.

Meanwhile, another identified co-passenger in the flight, a Chinese national from Guangdong, reportedly left Kolkata after staying a night at a hotel at College Street area in central part of the city.

"We have inputs that the Chinese tourist left Kolkata on January 26 and went to Delhi, we are currently trying to reach out him," an official said.

Earlier, the state health department had identified eight co-passengers and crew members, who traveled in a same flight from Guangzhou to Kolkata with Kerala's first two Coronavirus victims on Jan 23.

Their saliva samples were collected and tested in laboratory, and all samples were reportedly found nCoV negative.

According to reports, more than 25 persons are currently kept under either hospital isolation or home quarantine while no saliva sample from Kolkata or West Bengal has been found nCoV positive so far.

Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), a coronavirus identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness first detected in Wuhan city of China, has claimed nearly 500 lives so far.