India’s coronavirus cases nears 30, hits major payments firm Paytm

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he would not attend celebrations for the Hindu Holi festival, scheduled to be held across the country next week.

Experts across the world have advised to reduce mass gatherings to avoid the (virus) spread. Modi said in a tweet on Wednesday. “Hence, this year I have decided not to participate.”

An employee of Paytm – an Indian payments company whose parent firm is backed by Alibaba and SoftBank – who had vacationed in Italy and is based in Gurugram near New Delhi tested positive for the coronavirus.

Vardhan said authorities were taking extra precautions against the spread of the virus after the sharp rise in cases.

“We will now screen all international passengers. We will not limit our screenings to 12 countries as we did earlier,” Vardhan told a news conference.

More than 93,000 cases have been reported worldwide, and several thousand have died from the flu-like coronavirus, which emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year and has since spread to more than 80 countries.

India, the world’s largest supplier of generic drugs, has curbed the export of pharmaceuticals due to fears of coronavirus-related shortages and this has caused “panic” in Europe.