The Belagavi district administration declared as containment zone a large part of Bhavana Soundatti village near Chikkodi after 19 members of a joint family tested positive for COVID -19.
A team of Health Department officers are camping in the village. They sent for RT-PCR test samples of over 250 persons from the village who might have come into contact with those who tested positive on Sunday.
Officials suspected that a few members of the family who went for a business visit to Maharashtra could have contracted the virus.
Officers said that these cases had come to light after an 80-year-old man, the patriarch of the 48-member joint family, fell ill and doctors in Chikkodi suggested a COVID-19 test. Once he tested positive, all his primary contacts were subjected to tests. Of them, 19 members tested positive.
Following this, Deputy Commissioner M.G. Hiremath asked officers to trace primary and secondary contacts of all the family members and test them. These samples were collected and sent.
“We are waiting for results of more tests,’’ Mr. Hiremath said.
He told journalists that regulations would be enforced on the containment zone in the village as per the standard operating protocol. “We are also intensifying checking in the district’s borders and increasing tests per day,” he said.
