Another UK-returned Delhi resident tests positive for COVID-19
(Sourced from PTI)
A UK-returned man in the Dwarka area of the south-west district of Delhi has been found positive for COVID-19 and his family has been quarantined while tracing of others who came in contact with him was underway, an official said on Thursday. "The passenger came to India from the UK on December 19," he said.
The official said, "The patient was shifted to the special facility at the LNJP hospital where genome testing will be conducted to identify the strain of the virus. His family members have been quarantined and those persons who came in contact with him are being traced." On Wednesday, another person who recently arrived from the UK had tested positive in the South.
The government officials said, "The government has set up a separate facility at the LNJP hospital for those passengers from UK who are found COVID-positive in RT-PCR tests conducted at IGI airport, for their treatment and genomic testing."
The district authorities have deployed teams to contact those passengers who returned from the UK in the past four weeks and ensure that they undergo RT-PCR tests if they show any symptoms, said a senior government official. In the UK, a mutated, highly infectious strain of the coronavirus has emerged since November 25.
The officials said, "Those passengers who have returned from the UK in the past few weeks and have been found negative will undergo two weeks home isolation followed by another two weeks under observation." "In north-east Delhi, all nine persons traveling from the UK underwent RT-PCR tests and were found negative. In west Delhi, 55 such persons were tested negative," they added.
Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain had earlier said, "Delhi Government is aware, and all the people who have traveled from the UK to Delhi in the past two weeks will be traced, tested, and advised quarantine."
The authorities have enhanced monitoring of the city's residents who returned in the past few weeks from the UK to prevent any violation of home isolation, Delhi government officials said. Teams of health department and civil defense volunteers have been deployed at the district-level to keep a watch on persons who tested negative but have to undergo home isolation.
The officials said, "A 5-star hotel in Aerocity near the airport has been earmarked as a paid quarantine facility, while a COVID-19 care center in south Delhi will serve as a free institutional isolation facility for passengers from flights in which positive cases are detected."
