39 people at NIMHANS in quarantine

As many as 39 people, including doctors, were quarantined after they were exposed to a female COVID-19 patient at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) in Bengaluru.

The quarantined include 11 nurses, 10 ‘swachata’ workers (group D staff), 10 security personnel and eight junior resident doctors of NIMHANS.

The 34-year-old woman was brought to the hospital for emergency care on Friday and tested positive for the virus on Saturday night.

Following the development, emergency services at the hospital were shifted to the adjacent building at 11 pm on Saturday.

The woman’s husband, 43, and mother, 55, have also tested positive. The patient and her mother are being treated at Bowring Hospital.

Her husband, who is suffering from chronic kidney disease and is a diabetic, is being treated at Victoria Hospital.

Her teenage children, aged 15 and 16, have been quarantined in a hotel and will be tested on the fifth day of quarantine.

The family resides in a multi-storeyed building in Gurapanapalya and their neighbours are absconding, said the area’s BBMP medical officer. The BBMP is confident of catching them.

Dr B N Gangadhar, Director, NIMHANS, said the doctors were quarantined at the hospital itself. He said that emergency services would resume operations from the original building by Wednesday. “The building has been sanitised and the shift to other buildings on the campus is temporary,” he said.

A BBMP official said only five (her family members) out of a list of 22 people were being considered as primary contacts.

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“We have gone by the numbers given by NIMHANS itself. The hospital said 17 people have handled her. They include doctors, nurses and ward boys. Since they were wearing masks and gloves, they are being considered her secondary contacts by the BBMP,” he said.

The official said that Gurapanapalya, the area where the patient resides, was already a containment zone as a doctor had previously tested positive.

A BBMP medical officer tasked with contact tracing in Gurapanapalya said the patient was taken to NIMHANS by her family itself.

The two-storeyed building where the family lives has five houses. While the family lives on the first floor, neighbours in one house on the ground floor and three houses on the first and second floor are absconding, said the officer.

“They knew we were coming and were scared of being taken to a hotel,” he said.