KOLKATA: All five UK returnees under observation at the Infectious Diseases & Beliaghata General (ID&BG) Hospital, including a woman, have tested negative for the mutated UK and South African Covid strains, a senior health official said on Tuesday. Four of them, including the woman, have been allowed to return home and one — who has reported a drop in oxygen levels — has been shifted to the Covid ward and will be monitored.
The patients who are being released after a negative genome sequencing report have been advised strict home quarantine for seven more days. The samples of the UK actor, now being kept in isolation, have also been sent for genome sequencing. Her reports are still awaited from the Kalyani-based National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBG).
TOI had reported that the 38-year-old UK-based professional, who had flown into Kolkata on December 20 to be with his family and tested positive for the UK-strain of Covid, was released from Medical College Hospital (MCH) after back-to-back RT-PCR tests showed he was Covid negative.
Last Wednesday, one of the UK returnees who was admitted at ID&BG was discharged after the patient’s swab samples tested negative to the UK strain on genome sequencing. According to sources, the man from Kolkata had flown back to the city on December 22 from the UK.
Just hours before the UK flight ban kicked in and new norms for checks on passengers from the UK were announced on December 20, a flight from London had landed in Kolkata carrying 226 passengers. Out of them, two were found Covid positive. The 38-year-old UK professional was one of them whose genome sequencing showed the mutated Covid strains.
The Centre had prescribed various actions from the point of entry and in the community for all international passengers who have travelled from or transited through the UK from November 25 to December 23. Between November 25 and December 17, international flights flew 4,742 passengers into Kolkata. Sources at Kolkata airport said four direct flights had reached Kolkata since November 25, carrying 846 passengers. All passengers, as per the central SOP, had been kept under watch in home isolation.