GUWAHATI: Amid global concerns over the new coronavirus strain, a woman traveller from the UK, who arrived here a few days ago, has tested positive for Covid-19 and has been admitted to the isolation ward of
Gauhati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH).
State health authorities said they have identified 110 people who have come from the UK in the last one month and 67 of them have been traced and tested for Covid-19 so far. The lone woman traveller found positive is a working professional in Britain.
“The woman has been shifted to the GMCH. Hopefully, by tomorrow, we will be able to locate rest of the returnees,” executive director at
National Health Mission (NHM), Assam,
Dr Manoj Choudhury, told TOI on Thursday evening.
He said the sample of the woman, who has tested positive, has been collected and will be sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune for verification. Health officials said her contact tracing is being done vigorously.
“Effort is on to track all the
passengers who have arrived in Assam through the UK. Some of the returnees, who mentioned their phone numbers of UK in the records, could not be reached. But such contact details have been shared with police and district administrations who are working vigorously to locate them,” Choudhury said.
He added that as Assam airports do not have direct flight connectivity with any of the airports in Europe, these 110 passengers landed in the state as domestic passengers.
NHM Assam director
Lakshmanan S said the health department is following each of the travellers who have arrived from the UK in recent times. “If some of the UK returnees are tested with the new coronavirus strain, those people who travelled with them in the same flight have a high chance of turning out positive due to the high transmission rate,” he said.
The SOP issued by the Centre describes the activities to be undertaken at the point of entry and in the community for all international passengers who have travelled from or transited through the UK in the past four weeks (from November 25 to December 23, 2020). “Respective state governments shall ensure that all passengers travelling from or transiting through airports in UK and disembarking in India would be subjected to
RT-PCR test on arrival. In case of a positive sample, it is recommended that spike gene-based RT-PCR test should also be performed by an appropriate laboratory,” it says.
Health officials said the travellers who have come from UK are being tested and put under quarantine as per protocol to stop any possibility of the spread of the new variant of the SARS- CoV 2 virus.
The SOP issued by the Union health ministry stated that this variant of the virus is estimated to be more transmissible and affecting the younger population.