In perhaps the only of its kind of COVID-19 spread, 17 members of a big extended family in Sangli district have tested positive to the deadly infection.
While five members have tested positive earlier this week, reports of 12 others were tested positive on Friday.
The family is based in Islampur in Sangli district of Western Maharashtra.
The patients are undergoing treatment at the Miraj Civil Hospital.
The tests were conducted at the Pune-based National Institute of Virology.
Four members of the family had returned from Saudi Arabia earlier this month.
After 5 of them tested positive on 25 May, more than 20 other members of the extended family, that stay in the same locality, were compulsorily quarantined. Their samples were taken and sent to NIV-Pune, where 12 more tested positive.
"They are all part of the same extended family," a Public Health department official said.
Maharashtra Water Resources Minister Jayant Patil, who is the Guardian Minister of Sangli and himself hails from Islampur, said that the administration and police machinery is taking all precautions.
Sangli district's Collector Abhijit Choudhary himself is overseeing the arrangements.
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