Two people tested positive for Covid-19 in Kolkata after returning from the UK, a senior health official said.
The official said that experts were testing samples from the infected people to determine if it is the new Covid-19 strain that is believed to spread the infection the fastest.
Two people tested positive for Covid-19 after landing at the NSCBI airport in Kolkata on Sunday. The flight was from London. Now they are admitted to two hospitals. Experts are analyzing their samples to see if it is the new strain, ”said NS Nigam, state health secretary.
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The British government had warned of a potent new strain of Covd-19 virus that was “out of control” and imposed a new strict stay-at-home lockdown from Sunday.
India on Monday announced the suspension of all flights to and from the UK between December 23 and December 31 to prevent the arrival of a new strain of Covid-19 that is believed to spread the infection more quickly.
According to a senior official in the state health department, there were at least 222 passengers on a flight that arrived in Kolkata from London early Sunday. At least 25 passengers, who had no RT-PCR test reports at the time of landing, were tested in Kolkata. Two of them tested positive for Covid-19 and were transferred to two separate hospitals.
“We are trying to analyze the contact history of these two people. Efforts are also being made to contact all the passengers who arrived in Kolkata from London in the last seven days and check if they are following quarantine rules, ”said a senior official.
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Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has said that there is no need to panic and that the government is well prepared to handle any situation.
A flight arrives from London to Calcutta every Sunday. Despite allegations that there had been lapses in tracking passengers arriving from London, airport authorities said that for the past month and a half RT-PCR tests were being conducted only for passengers from London. .
“Passengers arriving from London, who do not have RT-PCR test reports during landing, undergo an RT-PCR test at Kolkata airport. If someone tests positive, state government officials take the infected person to a designated Covid-19 hospital, “said Kaushik Bhattacharya, director of the NSCBI airport.
While one of the two passengers, who tested positive, was admitted to Kolkata Medical College, the other was admitted to the Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, both Covid-19 designated state hospitals.
To date, West Bengal has reported 5.38 lakh of Covid-19 cases, of which 9,401 have died. Kolkata with about 1.20 lakh of cases registered the maximum number of patients. However, active cases have dropped in the last two months. There are currently around 16,900 active cases compared to more than 36,000 active cases on November 1.
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