Two passengers on UK flights who tested positive on arrival in Delhi this week left isolation centres and reached their hometowns in Andhra Pradesh and Punjab. They have been tracked down and admitted in government facilities amid worries about a fast-spreading mutant strain of the coronavirus found in the UK.
A 47-year-old woman arrived on Monday and tested positive for Covid in a Rapid Antigen Test at the Delhi airport. Her 22-year-old son tested negative. Passengers on UK flights are being tested at airports across the country to check the spread of a fast-spreading mutant variant of the coronavirus that has emerged in Britain.
The woman was taken to the Safdarjung hospital and reportedly advised home isolation as she was asymptomatic. She then travelled with her son from Delhi to Rajahmundry by the AP Special Express, which arrived at midnight yesterday.
Railway police and health officials took her straight from the railway station to the hospital.
"We have carried out rapid antigen and RT-PCR tests for the mother and son. We have also sent samples to the National Institute of Virology at Pune for genome sequencing," district medical and health officer KVS Gowrishwara Rao told NDTV. The son has once again tested negative for the virus and both are asymptomatic, he said.
The woman, a teacher in the UK, allegedly told officials that she left on her own as she was asymptomatic.
The Andhra Pradesh government said the woman travelled first class and did not interact with anyone on the train.
In the second case, a man who recently flew down from the UK and tested COVID-19 positive escaped an isolation centre in Delhi and reached Ludhiana in Punjab.
The man checked himself into a private hospital in Ludhiana but was sent back to Delhi, a senior official in Ludhiana, Sandeep Kumar, told news agency ANI.
"We received a call from Delhi that a man, who returned from the UK, escaped isolation and came to Ludhiana and admitted himself at a private hospital. He was tested Positive for COVID-19 but the strain was not clear. We were asked to send him back to Lok Nayak Hospital, and we had sent him back yesterday (Wednesday)," Mr Kumar, Additional Deputy Commissioner, said.
He said the administration was trying to trace anyone the man came in contact with.
The government had on Monday suspended all flights connecting India and the UK from Wednesday to December 31 as various countries announced similar bans.
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