Hyderabad: Virus in Pragathi Bhavan scares CMO babus

Hyderabad: Some kind of scare has spread among senior IAS officials after 15 staff members working at Pragathi Bhavan, the camp office of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, tested positive. The officers are worried since they took part in a series of meetings held at Pragathi Bhavan before June 28.

Soon after they felt that they were having symptoms like mild fever, cold and cough, they underwent corona tests but fortunately no officer tested positive. Still many of the CMO officials, as well as senior officers, reportedly underwent tests for the second time when they felt they had mild symptoms of corona.

They are waiting for the results. Soon after the spread of the deadly virus was reported in Pragati Bhavan, the Chief Minister left for his farmhouse and has been staying there since June 28.

Highly placed sources said that the senior officials, mainly the Secretaries of the important departments who attended the meetings regularly in the CM camp office, are anxious about their health. Most of the meetings were conducted with the Medical, Finance, Revenue, Forest and Agriculture department officials.

According to sources, what is causing concern for them is that some officials had directly came into contact with the staff in Pragathi Bhavan during the meetings. Some of them have now tested positive.

Soon after the staff tested positive and the Chief Minister had shifted to the farmhouse, Pragathi Bhavan was completely sanitised and all the conference halls and the CM's mini meeting hall were closed.

At present, the old camp office which is 500 metres away from Pragati Bhavan and was constructed during the time of former Chief Minister Y S Rajashekhar Reddy is now being used by the Minister for Municipal Administration K T Rama Rao for holding meetings with the officials from his department. As a precautionary measure, special teams to sanitise the premises have been deployed, sources said.