Rajasthan taking precautions to curb Coronavirus spread: Raghu Sharma

Rajasthan Health Minister Raghu Sharma on Tuesday said the state government is taking all precautions to prevent the spread of Coronavirus and there is no need to panic.

Speaking to ANI he said, "the state government is already very conscious and taking precautions to prevent Coronavirus spread so there is no need to panic."

He said that the government has screened people coming from the countries affected with disease and samples of suspected people have been sent for tests. "All samples have tested negative," he said.

Speaking on the suspected positive Coronavirus case of an Italian tourist in the state, the Minister said, "one person was admitted in the SMS hospital on the suspicion of virus but his samples had tested negative."

"I have seen that even if a person has the virus, it takes minimum of 2 to 14 days to detect the virus in the body. We have checked that person again and it showed some symptoms of the virus. We have sent the samples and reports for further test to Pune," he said.

"I cannot say anything until the reports come," he added.

He said that information regarding this incident has been given to the Central government and the Italian embassy.

"We are taking precautions in the way that we are screening all the people who came in the contact of those tourists in the Ramada hotel and considering sealing the rooms in which they stayed and also screening the staff of SMS hospital those who came in the contact of the patient," he said.

"We are giving medicines which are used in HIV, Swine Flu and Malaria to suspected patients," the minister said.

Coronavirus first originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December, last year, and has since then spread to nearly 50 countries across the world, including India.