A woman who had tested positive for COVID-19 fled Delhi’s quarantine facility and was found at her hometown in Rajahmundry by officials and Health Ministry authorities who, based on a tip from the national capital police, received her at the train station early on Thursday morning, 24 December.
Five passengers went missing in New Delhi airport on Tuesday. Four of them were traced back, with one passenger found in Ludhiana, Punjab. They have been admitted to Lok Nayak hospital in Delhi following treatment and quarantine protocol. The woman was the fifth passenger and was traced in Andhra Pradesh, reported Indian Express.
She and her son, who came to receive her in Delhi, have been hospitalised and kept under quarantine in a special ward of Rajahmundry hospital, in East Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh.
A swab test has been done and sent to National Institute of Virology, Pune to check whether the 47-year-old Anglo-Indian woman is positive for the new coronavirus strain found in UK. The results for the same have not been determined as of yet. The woman and her son meanwhile, will remain in isolation, reported PTI.
The genome sequencing study would determine if the COVID-19 positive patients are carrying the existing strain of SARS-CoV-2 or the mutant strain which was discovered in the UK's population.
What happened?
The woman, Mary Winfred Ann Parie, a private school teacher, had landed in Delhi airport from UK on Monday, 21 December. Upon testing positive, she was sent to Safdarjung Hospital.
The woman, being asymptomatic, was asked to quarantine herself for seven days. However, authorities couldn’t trace her after she left the hospital with her out-patient card, according to Hindustan Times.
The woman was received by her son and the two of them fled to their hometown by Andhra Pradesh Express train, travelling by first class compartment on Tuesday night. The authorities, following protocol, are now tracing fellow passengers and railway staff on the train, reported PTI.
India on High Alert After New Strain of COVID-19 Found in UK
Over 470 passengers who arrived at the IGIA in two flights on Tuesday night were tested at the airport.
Eleven people coming from UK have tested positive in Delhi, eight in Amritsar, two in Kolkata and one each in Odisha & Chennai. The Centre has said that no cases of the new strain of coronavirus have been found in any passenger who has landed from the UK in India so far.
Meanwhile, the Union Health Ministry on Wednesday reviewed the status of passengers coming from the UK to India and directed states and Union Territories to send samples of those found coronavirus positive to six laboratories identified for genome sequencing.
The Aviation Ministry has suspended all flights coming in from the UK to India as the nation is on high alert after the discovery of the new strain of coronavirus in UK.
(With inputs from PTI, Indian Express and Hindustan Times)
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