Coronavirus: Tripura to Airlift Protection Kits from Kolkata amid Lockdown

Agartala, March 26, 2020:

Tripura State Government is planning to airlift protection kits from Kolkata that is stuck in the city due to lockdown following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

There is an acute dearth of coronavirus protection kits due to the 21-day nationwide lockdown and therefore the Tripura Health and Family Welfare department has decided to explore every possible way to bring the health or infection protection kits from Kolkata.

While addressing a press conference in Kolkata, Tripura Health Secretary, Debasish Basu said, “The consignment of the health kits has been stuck in Kolkata due to the nationwide lockdown claimed yesterday. We have decided to airlift the consignment. A chopper has been booked already as we can not take any chance”. He admitted that Tripura has a scarcity of necessary health kits required to keep the coronavirus away.

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Quashing the rumors of COVID-19 positive cases in Tripura, Basu informed the mediapersons here in the Civil Secretariat that there were no positive cases reported yet. According to the official data, altogether 50 people are still lodged in the quarantine centers and 948 people have been directed to remain in home quarantine.

“Adequate doctors and health staffs are taking care of the people who have shown the symptoms. And, for public interest quarantine stickers were sampled on the hands of the patients so that they could be identified easily”, he said.

Speaking on the lines of the travel history in the Manipur coronavirus case, wherein a 23-year-old was recovering from COVID-19 and arrived in Imphal via Air Asia flight, he said, those who had travelled with the girl have been identified and their blood samples were collected.

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It may be mentioned here that a 23-year-old girl from Imphal West district of Manipur had tested positive for COVID-19, thereby making it the first positive case of Manipur and the Northeastern part of the country on March 24. Her travel history has sent alarms in the State and the authorities are trying to trace and screen the ones who travelled with her.

The 23-year-old is a student of Brisal University UK. She came from the UK and arrived at Delhi and Kolkata on March 19. Her brother had also joined her from Atlanta at the Kolkata Airport. They stayed at a hotel in Kolkata and then arrived in Imphal on March 21. Her sister has been kept in isolation at JNIMS and her brother is under self-quarantine in their house.

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The family has also reportedly attended a marriage ceremony, which signals at the possibility of a lot many getting infected. However, the test of the 23-year-old is serological test and it has to be confirmed by Nucleic acid test, which is done outside the state. Recently, a similar case took place in Assam where a 4-year-old child was reported as being infected with the virus, however, later the test report showed negative results.

Mizoram has reported the second COVID-19 case in the Northeast. A 50-year-old man has tested positive for the virus after the sample was tested in Guwahati. The victim travelled from Amsterdam on March 15, 2020.

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