No new Covid-19 case in Northeast India, most patients recovering

Guwahati/Aizawl, April 19 (IANS): No fresh Covid-19 cases were reported from any of the eight northeastern states in the past 24 hours even as several people, who had earlier tested positive, discharged from the hospital as they recovered from the dreaded disease, ministers and officials said on Sunday.

Authorities in the northeastern states are preparing themselves to tackle the situation when some relaxations in certain sectors would be effective from Sunday midnight amid the ongoing lockdown, which was enforced across the country 26 days ago and would continue in the next two weeks.

According to Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, of the 34 novel coronavirus positive cases found so far in Assam out of which one had died, 17 patients have so far been released from the hospital and the remaining would be discharged from hospitals soon.

In Aizawl, a Mizoram government statement said that after a 22-year-old woman cancer patient from the state tested positive on April 13 in Mumbai, three more Covid-19 positive cases, two male and a woman, have been detected on late Saturday evening among those residing in Mizoram House in Mumbai.

The three fresh positive results, two of which are cancer patients, came after the Maharastra Health Department officials on the directions of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation tested the nasopharyngeal swab samples of 20 people residing in the Mizoram House.

Mizoram Health Minister R. Lalthangliana said that at this stage, it is difficult to ascertain how Covid-19 was contacted and spread among those residing at Mizoram House in Mumbai.

He also said that the state’s lone Covid-19 patient, a 50-year old man being treated at the Zoram Medical College in Aizawl since last month, is showing good progress. The man returned Aizawl from Amsterdam via Delhi and Guwahati on March 16.

A doctor from Mizoram, who worked in a hospital in Meghalaya, also tested positive for coronavirus in Shillong on April 14.

In Manipur, health officials said that the state’s second Covid-19 patient, a 65-year-old man undergoing treatment at Regional Institute of Medical Science, has tested negative for coronavirus for third consecutive tests.

Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh said that the Central government has given directives on the relaxation of the lockdown restrictions in some parts of the state and decision on relaxation would be taken at the state cabinet meeting to be held on Monday.

State Health and Family Welfare Department’s Additional Director Khoirom Sasheekumar Mangang told IANS over the phone that a government doctor, who had recently violated the government’s quarantine norms and protocol, has been suspended from the service.

Besides the Manipur patient, the lone patient in Arunachal Pradesh and the second and last patient in Tripura would be discharged from the hospitals within the next two days making the three northeastern states with no active cases.

Meanwhile, defence spokesman P. Khongsai said that army troops have been conducting Covid-19 awareness Campaign’ in the remote villages of the region.

“Aim of the campaign was to enhance awareness amongst the villagers about the coronavirus pandemic and various precautionary measures required to be undertaken to contain the spread of the disease. As part of the campaign, information leaflets and facemasks were also distributed amongst the villagers,” the Defence PRO said in a statement.