Three more COVID-19 patients test negative; set to go home

Three more COVID-19 patients, who

were undergoing treatment at a hospital here, tested negative for the disease on Wednesday, paving the way for their discharge, officials said.

One of them is the daughter of a couple who was discharged from Naidu Hospital earlier in the day.

The trio's report of second round of tests came negative hours after the couple, who were the first coronavirus positive cases in Maharashtra, was discharged following recovery, they said.

The couple's daughter, the cab driver who brought them to Pune from Mumbai and a person who was part of their Dubai tourist group, had also tested positive for the viral infection earlier this month.

 

The repeat samples of these three people were sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) for testing on Wednesday morning.

"All three samples have come negative in their second test and the process of their discharge has been started," said Dr Ramchandra Hankare, chief health officer, Pune Municipal Corporation.

The Pune-based couple and their 23-year-old daughter were part of a 40-member tourist group that returned to Mumbai from Dubai on March 1. The trio had travelled from Mumbai to Pune in a cab.

Earlier in the day, the couple received a warm welcome from their housing society members when they arrived in the premises after being discharged from the hospital following recovery.

Residents of the housing society, located on Sinhgad Road, came out in their balconies and clapped and clanged their utensils to greet the 51-year-old man and his 43-year- old wife.