Guwahati: Out of the total 25 positive coronavirus cases in Assam, 24 have been linked to the Tablighi Jamaat congregation at Nizamuddin Markaz in Delhi last month. However, it is one case that continues to baffle the health official here. It is of the 44-year-old businessman from this city, the only non-Markaz coronavirus patient in the state.
The 44-year-old businessman stays in a posh apartment complex here. He returned here March 1 after an official trip to Delhi. He was identified as a positive coronavirus case April 4.
“We don’t think the patient got infected in Delhi because though he returned from the national capital he showed no symptoms for a month and was detected positive only April 4,” Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told reporters here Sunday.
“If he was infected in Delhi, his symptoms should have been visible within four weeks. It did not happen and so we suspect he got the virus from someone he came in contact with in Guwahati after his return from Delhi. Efforts are on to find out the persons the man came in contact with in this city after his return ,” Hemanta Biswa Sarma added.
The government has identified 111 people (including some who had been to Kolkata and Delhi last month) who were in contact with the patient. Their samples have been taken and sent for testing.
Many of those 111 people have been sent to government quarantine facilities and the rest put in home isolation. The apartment complex where the patient resides, and has over 150 families, has been sealed.
“Until we get results of all 111 samples, we can’t say it’s a case of local transmission. In all probability this doesn’t seem to be local transmission as the patient has confirmed that he met people who came from Delhi and Kolkata in the past month,” said Sarma.
The minister said the patient might have got the virus from someone who was carrying it without showing any symptoms of COVID-19. He is at present admitted in Guwahati Medical College Hospital and his condition is stable.
Till Saturday, tests were conducted on 1,529 samples at five different labs in Assam. Of this, while 25 tested positive, 1,308 have been found negative and results of 196 samples are yet to come.
Of the 25 positive patients, 24 had visited the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi last month. Till Saturday, tests had been conducted on samples of 812 people from Assam who had participated in the vent. Out of those tested 636 reports have come in as negative while the results of 152 samples are yet to come.
“It is unfortunate that every day we are getting fresh inputs about more and more people from Assam who had visited the congregation. I appeal to the district and state level functionaries of Tablighi Jamaat in Assam to give us the entire list of attendees voluntarily,” said Hemanta Biswa Sarma. “We have not got the kind of response we expected from them,” he added.
Agencies