Mizoram COVID-19 Case: Here's What You Need to Know

Aizawl, March 25, 2020:

When Mizoram Health & Family Welfare Minister Dr R. Lalthangliana called for an emergency meeting with media personnel, murmurs abounded that the first case of COVID-19 would be declared in Mizoram as last night, reports of a COVID-19 patient in the State had already surfaced on various sections of the media.

Lalthangliana, at the Secretariat Conference Hall in MINECO, confirmed what everyone already knew to be true: that a 50-year-old had tested positive for the virus in after the sample was tested in Guwahati.

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The victim, a 50 year old man left from Amsterdam on March 15, 2020. On the way, he had made stops at Doha, New Delhi, and Guwahati. He entered Mizoram through Lengpui Airport on March 16, 2020. It has been reported that before his departure from Amsterdam, the COVID patient called up Health officials in Aizawl who had sent him the quarantine guidelines put up by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India. The patient said that he strictly followed the guidelines given by authorities.

Dr Sawma of the Integrated Disease Surveillance Program (IDSP) in Mizoram has informed Inside Northeast that the situation is slowly returning to normal after the initial hue and cry over the detection. "The patient is okay now. He had a little fever, mild, but it is said to be coming down. It is said to be coming down."

Upon reaching India on March 15, 2020, he stayed overnight at New Delhi and on the next day, i.e. March 16, 2020, boarded an Indigo flight from New Delhi to Guwahati.

Here, he changed his plane and boarded a GoAir flight to reach his destination-Lengpui Airport, Aizawl, where he even went through the mandatory screening.

On March 18, 2020, he started developing fever and since it did not subside, he contacted the Mizoram Health & Family Welfare Department on March 20, 2020.  On March 22, 2020, a doctor paid a visit to his home where a throat sore swab sample was taken and sent to GMCH laboratory, Guwahati. The doctor who visited to take the sample even commented that the whole family were practicing isolation and quarantined themselves.

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On the late night of March 24, 2020 Mizoram government got the tragic result that the sample had tested positive for COVID19. They have mentioned that it was tested twice).

The patient, his wife and two children were immediately taken to ZMC Isolation ward and have been quarantined.

Meanwhile, no one else in the patient's family has shown any symptoms of the virus and contact tracing has been initiated by the Government officials. At the same time, Government officials have dug up the list of persons who flew on the March 16, 2020 Delhi and Guwahati flight Indigo Airlines flight no. 6E 939 and lists of March 16, 2020 Guwahati and Aizawl flight GoAir flight no G8X/G8298 .

Apart from that, all passengers of these flights and their relatives have been urged to quarantine themselves. Meanwhile, officials have instructed people not to spread the name of the infected person, although sources have confirmed to Inside Northeast that he is a pastor by profession.

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