Guwahati: A medic uses thermal screening device on passengers arriving at airport (PTI)
A day after announcing a high alert over coronavirus, Assam today quarantined 127 people who last month came in contact with an American tourist. The 76-year-old American, who had visited Guwahati, tested positive for the deadly virus when he travelled to Bhutan from India last week.
Of the 127 under quarantine, an Italian tourist is under special observation.
"We are tracing and screening them… An Italian tourist is under observation, his blood sample has gone for a test. We are waiting for the report," Assam's junior health minister Pijush Hazarika told NDTV.
Samples of two persons from Assam's Hojai district, who showed symptoms of coronavirus and have a travel history to southeast Asian countries, have also been sent for tests, official sources added.
The tourist had stayed at the Radisson BLU Hotel in Guwahati before flying to Bhutan on Monday. All the 23 staff of the hotel with whom the tourist came in direct contact have been asked to stay in isolation. The entire hotel will be fumigated and the floor he stayed on has been cordoned off. 250 staff of the hotel were screened on Saturday and none of them showed any sign of the infection, official sources added.
"We have sanitised the hotel," Vikas Ray, General Manager of Radisson BLU, Guwahati, told NDTV.
300 kilometres away, in the Jorhat district, the river cruise the US tourist spent seven days on, was also checked. 22 guests and 29 crew members of MV Mahabaahu have been sent into isolation, official sources said.
Till Saturday, 585 passengers were screened at airports in Assam, out of which, 112 are foreign nationals; no one has shown any coronavirus symptoms.
At the Kaziranga National Park, over 200 tourists have been screened and there is no positive case in the state as of now, sources said.