A total of 19 cases of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) have been reported in India with some suspected SARS patients having been under quarantine, health officials confirmed here on Wednesday.

Nine more people were confirmed to be positive for the dreaded SARS virus on Wednesday in Pune, 1400 kilometers southwest of here, while preliminary tests revealed that one person in the northwest state of Punjab might be afflicted with the disease, according to the Press Trust of India (PTI).

Nine contacts of Stanley D'Silva Hospital in Pune had tested SARS positive. Majority of them were hospital staff, PTI said, adding that all of the new cases did not have any symptoms of the disease and did not have any fever. They were under home quarantine.

In New Delhi, Director General of Health Services S. P. Agarwal told the press that the total number of SARS cases in the country now stood at 19.

A 65-year-old man in Amritsar, a border town in Punjab 440 kilometers northwest of here, had tested SARS positive in the initial polymerase chain reaction test.

However, Agarwal said, his status had yet to be confirmed through gene sequencing. The chest X-ray of the man had shown atypical pneumonia, but he did not have history of traveling to an affected country or being in contact with a SARS patient, Agarwal added.

Doctors and health official are now waiting results of 12 suspected SARS cases.

Of the 19 SARS positive cases, two are in the east state of West Bengal, 14 in the west state of Maharashtra and one each in New Delhi, southwest coastal city of Goa and the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

(Xinhua News Agency April 30, 2003)