Assam gets its first case with no links to Tablighi

Prabin Kalita | TNN | Updated: Apr 5, 2020, 13:25 IST

Firefighters sanitise the Spanish Garden residential complex in Guwahati on Saturday after a Covid-19 positive case was detected in the society

Firefighters sanitise the Spanish Garden residential complex in Guwahati on Saturday after a Covid-19 positive...Read More

GUWAHATI: The total number of Covid-19 infected people in Assam rose to 25 on Saturday with four fresh cases, including one with no link to the Tablighi Jamaat, being reported in the last 12 hours. In addition, four others from Assam who attended the congregation and tested positive are undergoing treatment in Delhi.
Assam's first Covid-19 patient with no Jamaat links is a 52-year-old businessman from Guwahati with no travel history after March 1, raising questions about the location of the source of his infection. He has been isolated at the Guwahati Medical College and Hospital after his sample tested positive on Friday night.
"The Guwahati businessman returned from New Delhi on March 1. We don't think he brought the virus from Delhi because he would have shown symptoms after 28 days. Instead, he reported the symptoms on April 3. We suspect he might have caught the infection locally here by coming in contact with some human carrier," said Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.
'Spanish Garden', a high-end apartment located in the heart of the city where the businessman lives with his family along with 149 other flat owners, has been sealed and the area has been declared as a containment zone.
"This positive person was using the common facilities in the apartment. We have identified 111 persons who the businessman came in contact with and we have quarantined each one of them and collected their samples," Sarma said.
The other three infected persons are from North Lakhimpur, Morigaon and Golaghat districts. All of them had attended the recently-held Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi.