‘Halt in airport Covid tests puts Assam, region at risk’

GUWAHATI: At a time when the country is on alert over a spike in Covid cases in several states, lack of functional and dedicated Covid-screening facilities at Assam airports have put the state and the northeast at the risk of a fresh surge in infections, health officials said on Thursday.
Active cases are slowly on the rise in the state, with maximum cases reported from capital Guwahati. The Centre last week wrote to Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Telangana, Karnataka and Maharashtra on rising Covid cases. Incidentally, four of these states have multiple direct flights to Assam, daily.
Telangana continued to witness a rise in Covid-19 cases with 122 new infections on Thursday. Hyderabad reported the highest number of cases at 94.
“At present, only medical teams as per rules, are stationed in the Assam airports but these are not dedicated teams to screen passengers who may be infected by Covid,” said an official of the Airports Authority of India (AAI), looking after northeast airports.
The DGCA has already asked the airlines to ensure that all passengers wear face masks properly and continue to wear the mask throughout the journey. However, lack of mandatory testing is an issue, for which the airport officials made the state health department responsible. “Mandatory Covid testing was withdrawn from the Assam airports from February 15, according to a state government order dated February 14,” the AAI official added.
Guwahati, the busiest airport in the northeast, has recorded daily average footfall of around 10,000 of late, where the corresponding figure for all airports in Assam, including Guwahati, has been 14,500. Currently, seven airports are operational in the state.
Though steady, active cases have gone up from 10, reported about a week ago, to 13 on Wednesday evening. In the last 10 days, a maximum of 13 cases have been detected from Kamrup (Metro) district.
Without any Covid case being detected in the state since March 28, Assam’s lone active case in Jorhat district at that time was discharged on April 6. Thus, the state became free from Covid after two years. But the number of cases started fluctuating again from last month.
Sources in the state health department, however, said the latest Covid statistics released by the government will not reflect the true picture as barely 300 tests are being done daily in a state that has over three crore people.