Hyderabad: As many as 23 nationals from Vietnam and Kyrgyzstan, who were in Telangana reportedly for preaching, were Friday shifted to government-run hospitals in Hyderabad for coronavirus screening.
Twelve nationals from Vietnam and 11 from Kyrgyzstan , who were staying in two mosques in Nalgonda and Hyderabad, respectively, were shifted to hospitals here and kept in isolation wards.
The preliminary tests conducted on 12 nationals of Vietnam and two Indians accompanying them in Nalgonda showed no symptoms. However, all were shifted to fever Hospital in Hyderabad as a precautionary measure.
Authorities took up sanitisation of the mosque where the foreigners were staying for last two days. A similar drive was taken up at four other mosques visited by them.
The group of preachers belonging to Tableghi Jamaat had reached Nalgonda from New Delhi.
Authorities also shifted 11 Kyrgyzstan nationals from a mosque in Mallepally area of Hyderabad to a hospital on Friday. Some tension prevailed when the local police detained the group from the mosque and shifted them to hospital with the help of Health Department personnel.
Police, Health, Revenue and other departments have heightened the surveillance after eight Indonesians were found positive for Covid-19. A group of 10 preachers from Indonesia, who were staying at a mosque in Karimnagar, were brought to a hospital in Hyderabad on Tuesday. Eight of them were found positive, sending the administration into a tizzy.
The authorities rolled out cluster containment plan in Karimnagar on Thursday and screened 25,000 people in a radius of three of km in the area where the group was staying. However, none of them showed any symptoms of Covid-19.
Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao, who will be visiting Karimnagar on Saturday to instill confidence among people and monitor the measures taken to check the spread of Covid-19, has asked police and other departments to identify all those who came from abroad after March 1 and place them under quarantine. He said those who arrived in other cities but entered Telangana by trains or buses would be traced and quarantined.