No flyer from direct intl flight tested +ve so far

Nagpur: Another over 100 international flyers have been found negative in RT-PCR test performed soon after their arrival at Nagpur airport on Sunday morning.
This was the fourth Sharjah-Nagpur flight since the international route was reopened on December 5 after a prolonged closure. After the first flight, three more flights landed directly from Sharjah on December 7, 8 and 12. None of them has tested positive so far. Eight more flights are scheduled to land in Nagpur this month.
Three international flyers, who tested Covid positive, entered the city from Mumbai and Delhi. One of them — a 40-year-old man — is now confirmed Omicron patient and admitted to AIIMS Nagpur’s special ward along with two others.
With Sunday’s addition, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has tested around 400 flyers for Covid infection. Amid the Omicron scare, flyers directly landing in city and testing negative is a huge respite.
The NMC is monitoring the flyers and they are said to be doing well.
Additional municipal commissioner Ram Joshi said flyers directly landing in city need to be tested on the 8th day of arrival. “We have asked them to furnish negative RT-PCR reports. Our zonal medical teams too are assisting them in case they want to take a test at our centre. A list of another 600 international travellers was provided to us by the bureau of immigration. All those who could be traced were asked to take a test. Some of them tested positive,” he added.
The NMC has sent samples of these passengers too for genome sequencing to National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune.
Joshi said many never came to the city after entering the country, but were in other cities when the civic teams called them. The passengers had their permanent residence in Nagpur and, therefore, the local body was alerted.
A zonal medical officer said some of the flyers have also moved out of Nagpur as per their original travel plan. “It is difficult to keep a constant check when they are negative, though the norms mandate seven-day home quarantine,” he said.