COVID-19: Four Indian returnees from Kuwait to Telangana test positive

Hyderabad: Four returnees from Kuwait to Telangana have tested positive for COVID-19, officials said on Saturday.

This is the first case of evacuees from any country testing positive in Telangana.

A total of 163 evacuees from Kuwait had reached Hyderabad by a special Air India flight on May 10. All the evacuees were kept under 14-day quarantine at the paid-up facilities of their choice.

The samples of the four returnees were sent for testing after the health authorities found them with COVID-19 symptoms.

The four foreign evacuees were among the 52 new cases the state reported on Saturday. The death of another person due to COVID-19 on Saturday pushed the state's death toll to 49. This is the fifth consecutive day that the state has reported fatalities.

With 52 new cases, the state's tally shot up to 1,813. There was no let up in the number of cases in the hotspot of Greater Hyderabad as 33 more people tested positive.

The health authorities were concerned over not just the growing number of positive cases among migrants, but also over the continuing surge in the cases in Greater Hyderabad, the worst affected among all the 33 districts in the state.

The health department on Saturday issued a special advisory in view of the lockdown relaxation since May 16. It observed that there is a lot of mobility and movement of people from all walks of life and of all age groups, resulting in a surge of positive cases in the last few days.

The officials also claimed that 25 patients were allowed to go home from the hospitals on Saturday after they recovered from COVID-19. With this, the number of cured/discharged has gone up to 1,068.