6 more people from Mangor Hill test positive for COVID

Panaji: Six more persons from a locality of Mangor Hill, Vasco, have tested positive for the dreaded coronavirus (COVID-19) on Tuesday.

Health secretary Nila Mohanan told a press conference in Panaji that these six confirmed cases of COVID-19 include four family members of the two persons who had tested positive for the deadly virus on Monday while the remaining two people are their immediate neighbours.

All six persons have been admitted to the Margao-based designated COVID Hospital, and their health condition is reported to be ‘stable’. The state government on Monday declared the locality of Mangor Hill as a containment zone after the two persons tested positive for the COVID-19 pandemic. Mohanan said that of the total eight persons who have tested positive for COVID-19 at Mangor Hill some are symptomatic while some are asymptomatic.

“Our inquiries are still on, but we have not been able to establish a clear travel history of the particular persons. The two neighbours who have tested positive have clear contact with the family,” she said.

She said the police personnel attached to the Colva police station are still being tested for COVID-19 as one of the members of the family is connected to the police force.

The population at Mangor Hill is around 1,700 to 2,000, the health secretary said, adding that the government first wants to test all the people in the containment zone. A team of Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme cell of the directorate of health services is working to trace the source of the virus at Mangor Hill.

Commenting on the reports of a doctor testing positive in the containment zone, Mohanan clarified that the particular doctor had tested positive in the preliminary test undertaken using Truenat Beta CoV test. However, in the confirmatory RT-PCR test, he tested negative for COVID-19.

She said that three persons from Verla-Canca, who were treated as suspected cases of COVID-19 after they tested positive in the Truenat test, have also tested negative for the virus in the confirmatory tests. 

She informed that 13 more active COVID patients have recovered from the disease in the last 48 hours.

Till date, Goa has seen 79 confirmed cases of COVID-19, of which 22 are currently active and 57 patients have defeated the deadly virus.

The health secretary said that of the 2676 samples drawn for examination on Tuesday, 1690 tested negative, six tested positive for COVID while the reports of the remaining 980 samples are still awaited.

She said  the government has taken ‘serious note’ of the incident at the Dabolim airport where the passengers arriving from Vande Bharat flight from Dubai created ruckus refusing to go to paid institutional quarantine;  they demanded that they should be allowed to go to their homes.