Manipur quarantine centre inmates protest over pending test result

Senapati: As many as 65 people, all returnees from Delhi and quarantined at Mt Everest institutional quarantine centre in Senapati district of Manipur, have announced an indefinite hunger strike demanding an immediate declaration of the COVID-19 test result of one of the inmates, on Wednesday.

The inmates at the centre have now denounced to consume any food being provided by the district administration with immediate effect till the test result of the one remaining inmates is declared.

In a letter written to the principal secretary of the health and family welfare, the inmates stated that the mishandling of the sample of an individual from Mt Everest quarantine centre by health officials and the explanation given by the laboratory officials is seemingly a worthless excuse.

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As per the statement, one of the individuals’ sample collected on June 13 with ID 142572972 and SRF ID 1425700002973 was broken and hence the sample was compromised. However, the officials failed to rectified the mistake and did not recollect the sample from the individual immediately.

It was only after they persistently enquired and learnt about the sample being grossly mishandled by the medical officials, the sample was recollected on June 24, it said.

Speaking with EastMojo, one of the inmates informed that poll sampling was carried out on June 3, from which one inmate was declared positive for COVID-19 on June 8. Later, a retest for the all inmates was done on June 13 and the test results for some inmates came out on June 20 and the remaining on June 21, except for one individual, the result was pending.

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Apart from the one individual, all the other inmates whose samples were recollected have tested negative. “However, as per the containment protocol, we are unable to leave for home quarantine until the remaining one sample is tested negative,” one of the inmates said.

“We are reaching out to esteemed sir as our last means in this time of political instability to oversee our conditions and lead us out of the extra dark situation our center has been subjected to,” said the statement.

As per the report, the returnees from Delhi, the first batch brought home by the state government by the special Shramik train, have been quarantined at the centre since May 28.

The inmates are under immense psychological and sociological pressure, especially the particular individual whose sample result is still pending.

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