Five of family test positive for COVID-19 in West Bengal

Five members of a family, including three children, tested positive for COVID-19 in West Bengal on Friday, taking the number of such cases in the state to 15, a senior health official said.

Among the five are a nine-month-old baby, a six-year-old girl, an 11-year-old boy, and two women aged 27 and 45, he said.

The 27-year-old woman had come in contact with a person from the UK who recently tested positive, the official added.

The woman is from Tehatta in West Bengal's Nadia district but now lives in Uttarakhand, he said.

"The person is studying in the UK and was kept in quarantine in New Delhi after he had returned from abroad. But he violated quarantine protocol and came to Tehatta to participate in a family function there. The woman came in contact with the person who tested positive for coronavirus and is now undergoing treatment in a hospital in Delhi," the official said.

The matter unfolded after the 27-year-old woman, mother of the nine-month-old baby, and the six-year-old girl visited a clinic in Tehatta with coronavirus-like symptoms.

The 45-year-old is the mother of the 11-year-old boy.

"Eight members of the family have been quarantined since March 23 at an isolation centre there in Nadia. Today, five among them tested positive for COVID-19," the health department official said.

The five are undergoing treatment at a hospital in Nadia district and will be brought to Kolkata on Saturday in a specialised ambulance meant to carry COVID-19 patients, the official said.

The health department officials have identified 18 people in the neighbourhood of the family and put them in isolation.

"We will also conduct tests on them," he said.

The state health department on Friday conducted tests on 33 suspected people and the reports are awaited.

Of the 15 suffering from the disease in the state, one had died and an elderly patient is in a critical condition.