Nearly 20 more persons, including doctors and paramedical staff, who treated the three SARS patients at Siddharth Hospital in Pune have been quarantined even as the condition of the patients shifted to Naidu Hospital has improved.

Others who have already been quarantined include the family of Stanley D'Silva, who was infected with SARS [Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome], and the family of his sister Julie, who got married to Shailesh Suryavanshi on April 21, health officer of the Pune Municipal Corporation Dr Anil Rewathkar said on Wednesday.

The condition of the patients is steadily improving and now the symptoms have also considerably subsided, Rewathkar said.

The health authorities have also quarantined the priest who solemnised Julie's marriage, he said adding, the quarantined persons are not allowed to move out till they are completely fit.

Stanley, a resident of Ambernath in Mumbai and working with a multinational company was on a tour of south-east Asia when he is believed to have contracted the disease and from him it had allegedly spread to his mother and sister.

Patients who exhibit the symptoms would be admitted to the Sassoon Hospital's special ward while those who test positive would be taken to Naidu hosptial, he added.

Alarmed by three confirmed cases in Maharashtra, the state government has made arrangements to provide quarantine rooms in every district hospital in the state for patients, suspected to have contracted the dreaded virus, Health Minister Digvijay Khanvilkar said.

"In the next two days, 21 hospitals in Maharashtra would have isolated rooms for suspected SARS patients," Khanvilkar said in Mumbai. In addition to these, hospitals attached to 13 medical colleges would also set up isolated wards for suspected cases, he said.

In Mumbai city, the government-owned J J Hospital and Kasturba Hospital have already set up separate wards, the minister said.

Khanvilkar, in a letter to the Union Health Minister Sushma Swaraj, has urged the Centre to request China, Hong Kong and Singapore to restrict the entry of suspected patients into India.

Meanwhile, the hunt is still on for the cabbie who ferried three members of D'Silva family from Ambarnath to Pune.

Complete Coverage: SARS Attack