Maharashtra: Two COVID-19 patients in Ahmednagar are foreign nationals

Two people who tested positive for coronavirus in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar on Sunday are nationals of France and Ivory Coast, who had come to the city with 12 others as part of their visit to religious places, district officials said.

Nine close contacts of these two positive patients have been sent for institutional quarantine and their samples have been dispatched for testing, they said.

Police and district administration are looking for the remaining people, who had come in their contact.

"A group of 14, including the two patients, had come to India from Mauritius recently. They first stayed in Delhi and then travelled to Mumbai, Chennai. They again went back to Delhi," a district official said.

"On March 14, all of them came to Ahmednagar by train and stayed at a religious institution in the city," he said.

On March 26, they came to Jamkhed in the district, he added.

"The district administration received information about their presence at a religious institution for offering prayer. All the 14 people were taken to the hospital and their samples were sent for testing. The results of five samples were received today and two were found to be positive," the official said.

"While one of them is a French national, another one is from Ivory Coast," he added.

The Ahmednagar police have booked the trustees of the religious institution for not informing the administration about the presence of foreign nationals at their place.

With these two cases, the total number of coronavirus positive patients in Ahmednagar has gone up to five, the official said.