Coronavirus outbreak: Two Tablighi Jamaat cases test positive in Punjab

Punjab Chief Secretary Karan Bir Singh Sidhu on Monday said that two more Tablighi Jamat cases tested positive in Fatehgarh Sahib. He also mentioned that reports of the other 11 Tabhligi members are still pending. Earlier on Sunday, the authorities in Punjab had traced 422 persons who attended Tablighi Jamaat meet in Delhi's Nizamuddin area.

The official also mentioned that the two patients have been shifted to Gian Sagar Hospital facility in Banur. Backward tracing of these positive cases is being done by the officials. The patients originally belong from Aurangabad, Maharastra and had attended the congregation in Delhi. The officials also mentioned that after attending the Jamaat, they had been given the task to further spread their ideology and the message and so they visited Punjab. 

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Coronavirus outbreak

The death toll in Punjab due to novel coronavirus rose to seven on Sunday with a 75-year-old woman succumbing to the infection in Amritsar hospital, officials said. A total of 432 persons from Punjab had attended the religious congregation and 422 out of them have been traced so far, an official spokesperson said on Sunday. Of those who had been traced, 350 were in Punjab and their samples have been collected for the coronavirus test, the spokesperson added.

Six persons have tested positive for the infection while samples of 117 have been found negative, the spokesperson said, adding the reports of 227 samples were still awaited. Punjab Director General of Police Dinkar Gupta had earlier said some 200 persons from Punjab had visited Nizamuddin and returned here, at different times, with 12 districts believed to be affected.

The Tabligh-e-Jamaat's Markaz mosque in Nizamuddin West is feared to have emerged as an epicenter for coronavirus spread, following which a large area around the mosque has been sealed and an FIR lodged against its cleric for violating government orders.

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