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Aizawl/Shillong, May 6 (IANS): Mizoram became the fifth Covid-19 free state among the eight northeastern states as three consecutive samples of its lone coronavirus patient tested negative, top officials said on Wednesday.
There has been no coronavirus case in Sikkim and Nagaland. Three Covid-19 patients -- one in Arunachal Pradesh and two in Manipur -- recovered last month, making these two states coronavirus free.
After Tripura was declared coronavirus free on April 25, 40 Covid-19 cases -- all Border Security Force (BSF) troopers, wife of a jawan and their two children, and a mess worker -- have been reported in the state since Saturday. They are being treated in different hospitals.
So far 331 people, including 90 doctors and health workers and 241 BSF jawans, have been identified to have come in contact -- directly or indirectly -- with infected BSF troopers. "Their swab samples are being tested in a phased manner," Education and Law Minister Ratan Lal Nath said.
Similarly, swab samples of the last and 11th Covid-19 patient in Meghalaya capital Shillong, tested positive after testing negative in earlier two tests. Meghalaya Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong said the fourth test would be done after three days as per the standard protocol.
Mizoram Health Services Director H. Lalchungnunga said the three successive tests of the state's lone patient came out negative. "The middle-aged man, undergoing treatment at the Zoram Medical College and Hospital, is expected to be discharged this weekend," Lalchungnunga told IANS over phone.
Mizoram Health and Family Welfare Minister R. Lalthangliana said the state could be declared Covid-19 free.
The 50-year-old Christian pastor from Mizoram had tested positive for coronavirus on March 24 on his return to Aizawl from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, via Delhi and Guwahati on March 16.
Swab samples of his wife and two children tested negative and they are staying at home.
Health officials in Aizawl said four people, including two women, from Mizoram tested Covid-19 positive in Maharashtra in the third week of April. All the four, three of them cancer patients, along with their relatives were staying at Mizoram House in Mumbai.
A doctor from Mizoram, who worked at a Meghalaya hospital, also tested coronavirus positive in Shillong on April 14.
Of the 12 coronavirus cases in Meghalaya, a veteran doctor died, ten recovered and one is undergoing treatment.
Assam, at present, has 11 active Covid-19 cases. While 32 patients recovered, one died in the state.