Agartala: A day after Tripura reported the second positive case of coronavirus aka COVID-19, the health department has put 35 persons under quarantine, while samples of nine close contacts were collected for a test on Saturday.
Speaking at a press conference, nodal officer for COVID-19, Dr Deep Kumar Debbarma, said that soon after the second positive case was reported, his travel history was traced and all the contacts were placed in quarantine.
He said that a total of 769 persons are currently under quarantine, which include 613 passengers in home quarantine and 156 in facility quarantine. A total of 361 samples have been collected for the test, while only two samples reported positive.
“We have decided to test all those persons placed under quarantine within the next week’s time. We have also decided to collect random samples of 10% neighbours from the first positive patient in Udaipur in Gomati district,” Debbarma said.
Meanwhile, heath secretary Debashish Basu said that a decision to identify the patients who have visited different PHC and SHC with symptoms of cold, cough and fever will be shortlisted for the test.
“The ASHA workers will collect the travel and health history of all those patients from the register book of the hospitals. Once the list is prepared among those patients 10-15% of them will be tested,” Basu said.
The samples of the health department staffers who attended the Udaipur woman was also taken for a test today, five days after the state reported its first COVID-19 positive case.
“Both the COVID positive patients are stable and being attended by the team of doctors around the clock. It is expected that the first patient will be discharged soon after her samples report negative,” Basu added.
Talking about the travel history of the second positive patient, the health secretary said that he had returned from Madhya Pradesh and, two days after joining duty, he was placed under quarantine.
“The TSR battalion has placed him under quarantine, however until the samples tested positive, he was in the camp at Damcherra,” Basu said.
