4 suspected coronavirus patients return home from hospital

Four city-based persons, who were kept in an isolation ward at a government-run hospital here for suspected coronavirus infection, returned home even as the hospital staff "requested" them against doing so as their test results were awaited, officials said on Saturday.

The incident occurred late on Friday night at the Indira Gandhi Government Medical College and Hospital (IGGMCH), they said.

However, three of them got admitted to the hospital this afternoon again and the fourth one expected to come back after the authorities instructed them to do so.

"Four persons, including two women, had come to the IGGMCH on Friday morning to give their blood samples for suspected coronavirus infection. They were kept in the isolation ward. They left the hospital on their own, although the doctors and other medical staff had requested them not to do so as their test results were awaited," Nagpur district collector Ravindra Thakre said in a press conference.

"Two of them are close contacts of those found positive for coronavirus in Nagpur earlier. Two others had recently travelled to Thailand and Netherlads," he added.

None of the four showed symptoms of coronavirus infection and their result is expected in the afternoon, Thakre said.

"After they went home last night, they were contacted and asked to return to the hospital. Three of them have come back and he fourth one is expected to return soon," he said.

Earlier in the day, the police had said that the four patients had returned home without informing the hospital authorities.

Three persons have been found positive for coronavirus in Nagpur so far. While one of them is undergoing treatment at the IGGMCH, other two have been kept in the isolation ward at the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH).

"The health condition of the three coronavirus positive patients is stable," he said.