Eight Covid-19 patients and two deaths in south Calcutta’s Panchanantala, Dhakuria, in little over a fortnight have the civic body worried why the area has turned into a cluster.

The contacts of all the eight patients have been shifted to quarantine centres and the place has been turned into a containment zone, allowing no entry and exit.

“The first person tested positive on April 26 and then it spread. We are taking all measures to contain further spread,” Baiswanor Chatterjee, a member of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation’s board of administrators, said.

Panchanantala is in Ward 90 and Chatterjee is the ward coordinator.

“All essentials are being delivered at homes and a stringent door-to-door surveillance is under way to identify any symptomatic person so that they can be tested and isolated quickly,” he said.

One among the eight who had tested positive for Covid-19 lives in an apartment block, a civic official said. “Four people have returned home after getting cured. Two people passed away and two are still in hospital,” the official said.

Multiple cases have been reported from a single slum or a close-knit densely-populated area across the city, the official said. “In such places, people live in close proximity to each other. The chance of the virus spreading is higher in such places; which is why we are not allowing any contact of a Covid-19 patient in such places to remain quarantined in home. We are shifting him/her to a government quarantine unit.”