A couple and their grown-up son who had arrived from Italy after changing flights at Doha seven days ago but left Kochi airport without informing the coronavirus helpdesk are among five new positive cases reported in Kerala, the state government said on Sunday.

Protocol required everyone arriving from countries hit by the novel coronavirus to report to the helpdesk. The couple had boarded a connection flight from Doha in Qatar and reached the Kerala airport.

The couple, aged 55 and 53, and their 24-year-old son “left the airport without contacting the coronavirus help centre at the arrival area”, state health minister K.K. Shailaja said in Thiruvananthapuram.

The family, apparently Italy-based NRIs, then travelled 200km to their home in Pathanamthitta, met friends and relatives and dropped in at their parish church. They also visited the police superintendent’s office to apply for security clearance towards the renewal of their son’s Italian residence permit.

Shailaja described their behaviour as “irresponsible” and said the government would “have to treat such behaviour as a major crime”, but added that the first priority was to treat them.

Kerala has had a commendable record in combating contagious diseases. The first three coronoavirus cases in India were confirmed in Kerala and the patients were discharged after recovery. The very first patient had voluntarily reported to health authorities complaining of a sore throat within days after she arrived from Wuhan, China, where she was studying medicine.

In the latest case, the family had escaped attention at the airport apparently because universal examination of all international passengers began only on March 3, two days after their arrival.

A novel coronavirus case was first reported in Italy on January 31 but the number started ballooning from February 21-22, about a week before the trio left the country.

Shailaja said the case had come to light when a couple, related to the trio and living next door, went to a government hospital with fever and other coronavirus-like symptoms on March 6.

“When our healthcare team rushed to the home of this family (of three), they refused to get treated and said there was nothing serious,” she said. “Our healthcare officials had to forcibly take them to the Pathanamthitta General Hospital (on March 6), where all five people are in an isolation ward.”

She added: “Although their behaviour has been irresponsible, our first priority is to save their lives. After that we’ll see what can be done to make them aware of their mistake. That’s why we are telling everyone that this (behaviour) is wrong; it’s an offence to hide such illness.”

As soon as the family’s blood samples tested positive on March 7 night, the administration began tracing all those who may have come in contact with them after their arrival.

Fourteen “contacts” have so far been identified and placed under observation at their homes, which involves regular visits by healthcare teams, since they haven’t shown any symptoms yet.

Among them is a police constable who had visited the trio’s home for a verification relating to their application for security clearance, and the cab driver who had driven them from Kochi airport to their home in Ranni.

Shailaja said the trio had travelled by Qatar Airways Flight QR126 from Venice to Doha on February 28, and caught the QR514 from Doha on February 29 night to arrive at Kochi on March 1 morning.

About 180 air passengers had travelled with them from Doha. “All of them must report to the nearest healthcare centre even if they don’t have any symptoms,” she said.

S. Suhas, collector for Ernakulam district where Kochi is located, said: “We are checking security camera footage of that (March 1) morning to try and trace the path of the family.”

“We expect to get the entire list of people whom they contacted by today,” Shailaja said on Sunday.

Despite the new cases, that too just 120km from Thiruvananthapuram, the Attukal Pongala festival would go ahead on Monday as planned.

During the festival, hundreds of thousands of women visit the Attukal Bhagavathy Temple in the state capital to offer the goddess a rice-and-jaggery dish. Tens of thousands of women have already poured into Thiruvananthapuram for the ritual, certified by Guinness World Records as the world’s largest gathering of women.

On Monday, the whole city would be taken over by women devotees who will set up firewood stoves on the streets to cook the dish.

“We were faced with a dilemma since it was impossible to cancel the Pongala after all the preparations had been made,” Shailaja said. “So we have asked women with symptoms like cough, breathing difficulty or fever to stay away.”

Mobile health clinics will be deployed across Thiruvananthapuram on Monday.