The Tripura Medical College hospital has emerged as a Coronavirus hotspot in the state after 26 of its medical staff tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday. 11 of these health workers had received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine weeks ago, said an official.
"11 of the 26 health workers who tested positive were vaccinated with the first dose of Covishield. All of them have tested positive on RAT (Rapid Antigen Test). Thus, we have sent their samples for RT-PCR to be doubly sure," said Dr Siddarth Jaiswal, Mission Director, NHM, Tripura.
Tripura is one of the best performing smaller states in the COVID-19 vaccination drive. It has already vaccinated 84 per cent of health workers and 70 per cent of frontline workers.
The outpatient department (OPD) of the hospital has been closed for 72 hours to stem the spread of the infection. The West Tripura District Magistrate, Dr Saliesh Kumar Yadav, ordered the closure of the OPD last night.
The surge in cases comes after the northeastern state reported no new cases in January and first week of February. Tripura reported infections in single digit last week.
The Tripura government has closed most of Covid care centres in the state after the drop in cases. However, this week witnessed a rise in the COVID-19 cases yet again.
The state health department officials said that they have started the contact tracing process to identify the close contacts of the infected people. All the staff of the hospital will be tested for the virus.
Tripura is also among the 18 states and Union Territories which have not reported any COVID-19 deaths in the last 24 hours. The other states and Union Territories which are part of the list are Telangana, Haryana, J&K (UT), Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Chandigarh, Lakshadweep, Manipur, Meghalaya, Ladakh (UT), Mizoram, Sikkim, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, according to the health ministry.
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