UDUPI: All eight international passengers from Great Britain and Canada who came to
Udupi district via Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) in Bengaluru since Monday have tested negative for Covid-19.
With the administration receiving their test report late on Tuesday, the district health authorities in Udupi instructed the passengers to remain in home quarantine where their health will be monitored for the next 14-days, DC G Jagadeesha said.
Confirming that the test reports of these passengers turned up negative, Jagadeesha told TOI that the administration swung into action in identifying all of them on receiving a report from Pankaj Kumar Pandey, commissioner, department of health and family welfare about their arrival in Udupi. “These passengers including three members from one family came to Udupi from KIA,” DC said, adding health teams collected their swabs for tests.
While three are from Kukkandoor in Karkala taluk, two each are from Udupi town and Saibrakatte in Brahmawar taluk respectively and one is from Nayakanakatte in Baindoor taluk. While five of them arrived from London, two came from Toronto in Canada and one from Dublin in Ireland. Five of these passengers are males and rest females, district health authorities said, adding a woman from the family of three is pregnant.
District health and family welfare officer Dr Sudhir Chandra Sooda said notwithstanding their test reports turning up negative, the passengers have been asked to undergo quarantine in that there is a lot of unpredictability about the new strain of virus detected in the United Kingdom. Initial studies in the UK suggest that the virus may be more contagious than the present one but not more virulent. Yet we do not want to take a chance, he said.
Minister for health and family welfare Dr K Sudhakar on Monday had a meeting with the Technical Advisory Committee of the health and family welfare department in wake of the emergence of a new variant of coronavirus in the UK. The state government has mandated RT-PCR test and quarantine for travellers from UK, Denmark and the Netherlands, Dr Sudhakar had said adding 587 passengers had arrived at KIA in two different flights.