80 Telangana doctors go home quarantine

Hyderabad: As many as 80 doctors are among the 120 medical professionals who are in home quarantine in the State.

They had to go into isolation after four health officials who were on thermal screenings duty at Shamshabad Airport tested positive this week. The four infected are paramedical staff with one of them is over 50 years while others are 30. They were part of 120 health personnel from the Union Health Ministry and Telangana Health Department, who worked in four shifts to screen overseas passengers for more than two months until Centre stopped air travel from abroad completely last week.

First, the 50-year-old paramedic employee from the State Health Department tested positive and later others who got in touch with him developed symptoms and tests were done at Gandhi Hospital which confirmed that they were also infected. According to officials, these 120 health officials including doctors were told to be in home isolation until April first week. Meanwhile, health officials traced out seven persons who co-travelled in train from New Delhi with the deceased 74-year-old Covid-19 infected man from Nampally.

"These seven persons shared train berths next to the deceased old man in the train and they are at risk of infection. However, all of them are doing well as on Sunday and their health condition would be monitored," an official said.