Three more persons tested positive for the virus in the last 24 hours in Prakasam district, coinciding with the Unlock 2.0, when major curbs on movement of people had been done away with.
The virus has now spread to remote villages in the district as a 32-year-old man from Pandirapalli village got infected as also a 80-year-old man and a 51-year-old man, both from Podili village, COVID-19 Nodal Officer John Richards said.
Both the persons from Podili were primary contacts of an infected person undergoing treatment at the COVID-19 Isolation Ward at the Government General Hospital
With this, the number of confirmed cases rose to 127 in the district, where all but one patient who had returned from Delhi's Nizambuddin were discharged.
The surge in new cases was attributed to those who had returned from, among other places, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra testing positive and spreading it to their near and dear ones. Health officials feared a surge in new cases in the coming weeks after removal of major curbs enforced during the four phases of the lockdown.
Alarmed over the spread of the disease to newer areas, health authorities implemented containment action plan in Vetapalem and Podili mandals on Tuesday. Sanitary workers sanitised all the villages in the two mandals. All entry and exit points were sealed.
No case in Nellore
Meanwhile, health officials in SPSR Nellore district said the district did not report any cases on Tuesday. The number of confirmed cases stood at 342 in the district. As many as 209 patients, most of them Delhi and Chennai returnees and their family members, have been discharged on recovery, while four persons succumbed to the disease so far.
The novel disease which was initially confined to urban clusters, has started spreading to remote villages like Sangam, Chejerla, Sitarampuram, Ojili, Chittamarru, Vinjamuru, Tada, Jaladanki, Kondapur etc., making the containment task a daunting one.
