Northeast’s first Covid-19 patient now free of infection

Imphal/Guwahati, April 6 (IANS): There is good news from Manipur, where a 23-year-old woman, who had returned from the UK and became the first positive coronavirus case in the entire northeastern region, was now declared completely free of the dreaded virus.

Manipur Health and Family Welfare Minister Langpoklakpam Jayantakumar Singh, in a Facebook post on Monday, said: “The much-awaited news of our daughter Vimi’s final Covid-19 test report has come out negative. Now she is completely free from the Covid-19 virus. It’s a huge achievement for the whole medical department in general and the doctors and staffs of JNIMS in particular. Let’s continue to fight and endeavour more to ensure that our state is completely free from Covid-19 spread.”

According to the health officials in Imphal, the woman is now undergoing treatment at Imphal’s Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences (JNIMS), where she was admitted on March 23 after she tested positive.

“Her family members’ swab samples were also tested negative earlier,” the officials said.

The officials said that the woman, who returned home from London, via Delhi and then Kolkata on March 19, did not reveal her travel history earlier before she was detected positive.

They said that on the same day, (March 19) the younger brother of the woman had arrived in Kolkata from Atlanta. Both stayed in a hotel in Kolkata and arrived in Imphal on March 21 by a private airliner via Agartala airport.

In all, there are 30 positive cases in four northeastern states – Assam (26), Manipur (2), Mizoram (1) and Arunachal Pradesh (1) and 27 of the 30 took part in Tablighi Jamaat congregation at Nizamuddin in Delhi, while the others were this Manipuri woman and a Mizoram man who had returned from the Netherlands, respectively.

Another 52-year-old trader in Assam’s Kamrup (Metro) district was also infected with the coronavirus.

Besides, four persons from Assam and three people from Tripura, who attended the congregation, have tested positive for Covid-19 and they are under treatment in north India hospitals.

Health officials in Aizawl on Monday said that the 50-year-old Mizo man was still at the Intensive Care Unit of the Zoram Medical College and Hospital in Aizawl. “His fever was a little controlled. The gentleman’s wife and two children’s swab samples had earlier tested negative and they are staying at home,” Mizoram’s nodal officer for integrated disease control surveillance programme Pachuau Lalmalsawma told IANS.