Indian-Australian family diagnosed with coronavirus returns home

The Dsilva family has finally returned to Melbourne after spending 22 days in quarantine at a Japanese hospital.

(From left to right) Dellone, Brenton, Bianca and Suzanne Dsilva were quarantined in an isolated ward at a Japanese hospital. Source: Supplied

Highlights

• Scott Morrison has extended the China travel ban to February 29 2020.
• Australians evacuated from coronavirus-hit Diamond Princess were brought to a quarantine facility in Darwin on February 20.
• As of 28 February 2020, Australia has 23 confirmed cases of COVID-19. 15 of these cases are reported to have recovered. The remaining cases are in stable condition.

Three of the four members of the Indian-Australian family who had tested positive for coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, have recovered and the entire family has returned to Australia.

“We are very happy and relieved [to be back home]. It feels amazing to be back at our own home. Very relieved,” Suzanne told SBS Hindi.

Suzanne’s daughter, Bianca was the first one to test positive. A week later, Suzanne and her husband, Dellone both tested positive for COVID-19.

“My daughter and I recovered quickly but my husband Dellone was very sick. They were going to put him in ICU, as the doctors were very concerned,” Suzanne shares.

“Then they put him on this HIV drug and they said it worked on some people in China so they are going to try that. And that helped him.”

Dellone took the longest to recover but once he did, the authorities cleared their path to return to Australia.

“It all happened within a few hours. We all tested negative and within a few hours we were on our flight back home,” she says.

The family reached Melbourne on Thursday morning and Suzanne says the family is thrilled to be back home.

“I am so happy to return to my routine. I missed my routine – cleaning and cooking. So happy to be back,” she says.

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The family has thanked the members of the community who prayed and sent their good wishes to them through Facebook.

“If we didn’t have that [good wishes and messages], I don’t know what state we would have been in.

“They gave us so much hope. I would like to thank everyone from the bottoms of our heart that without your prayers, thoughts and messages, we don’t think we could have made it through this,” she says.

Dsilva family at the Japanese hospital. Source: Supplied

The family had gone to celebrate Dellone’s 50^th and Bianca’s 21^st birthday on a cruise where they contracted the virus. The family were treated at a Japanese hospital for more than two weeks. 

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