Nearly 900 Quarantined After Delhi Mohalla Clinic Doctor Tests Positive For Coronavirus, Says Minister

New Delhi: After a doctor of a mohalla or community clinic in Delhi tested positive for coronavirus, close to 900 people who came in contact him have been quarantined, a city minister said on Thursday.

They have all been isolated for 14 days, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain told NDTV. He also said the number of coronavirus or COVID-19 cases in Delhi is now 36.

The doctor’s wife and teen daughter tested positive for the virus on Wednesday. Mr Jain said they may have contracted the virus from an infected woman who had visited the clinic after returning from Saudi Arabia.

The woman visited the clinic on March 12, the minister said. Five more persons have tested positive for the virus from direct contact with her. Some 74 persons in her neighbourhood are also under watch.

The doctor worked at a mohalla clinic in Maujpur in northeast Delhi.

Mohalla clinics are community health centres set up by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi mainly for the economically weaker.

Any spread of the virus in the densely populated Maujpur, which was incidentally among the areas worst hit by the Delhi violence, could be potentially disastrous.

District officials have ordered that those who visited the mohalla clinic between March 12 and 18 must stay in home quarantine for 15 days.

On Wednesday, 90 new coronavirus cases were reported in India, pushing the total number of cases to 606, while the number of deaths was 13, according to the Union Health Ministry.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday ordered a national lockdown for 21 days and said no one must leave their homes in that period.