Chittoor district tally rises to 91 with 5 cases in Venkatagiri Kota

Tirupati: After foreign returnees and Jamaat returnees now it's the turn of Koyambedu wholesale vegetable market in Chennai turns as hotspot for Covid-19. Chittoor district which has been heaving a sigh of relief for the last three days with several discharges of Covid survivors, started witnessing number of positive cases from Thursday. Most of the cases are Koyambedu contacts.

Officials have identified 21 persons initially in V Kota agriculture market who travelled to Koyambedu. DM&HO Dr M Penchalaiah has said that as they are suspected positives and their swabs were sent to SVIMS Virology lab and by Friday evening they are confirmed.

With this, officials have made arrangements to test other suspects samples also. Declaring V Kota as containment area, SP Senthil Kumar has asked people with Covid-19 symptoms to come forward for testing. Officials have made TrueNat machines and rapid test kits available at V Kota itself. District Collector Dr N Bharat Gupta visited the town to take stock of the situation.

Madanapalle registered first positive case with a software engineer who had come from Chennai by a lorry and walked 20 km to reach the town. Another person in Gudipala mandal having contacts with Koyambedu market was also tested positive.

In Tirupati, a staff nurse working in SVIMS was tested positive on Thursday evening. Another attender also working in SVIMS and is said to be the secondary contact of the nurse also tested positive. It may be recalled that another staff nurse of SVIMS was tested positive on May 3.

With the five cases in V Kota, the district tally reached 91 while four more positive cases were said to be reported at Satyavedu and Daskuppam areas though official confirmation is yet to come.