Six people who flew into Delhi from ‘at-risk’ countries, including the UK and the Netherlands, on Wednesday have been admitted to the Lok Nayak Hospital after four of them tested positive for COVID-19 and two “showed symptoms”, officials said.
Their samples have been sent to the National Centre for Disease Control for genome sequencing to ascertain if they have the new variant, Omicron, they said.
All six people have been admitted to the LNJP Hospital, where a dedicated ward has been set up for isolating and treating such patients, the officials added. ”Four flights originating from Amsterdam and London and carrying 1,013 passengers landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport between 12 night and 6 am. Of these passengers, four have tested positive,” a source said.
Three patients travelled on a flight from Amsterdam that carried 372 people. The fourth patient travelled with 176 others on a flight from London. All are Indian nationals, he added. An official at the LNJP Hospital said two more travellers who tested negative but have Covid-like symptoms have been brought to the hospital.
A total of six patients are in the hospital at present, he said.
Gauri Agarwal, Director, Genestrings Diagnostics, the laboratory conducting Covid-19 tests at the airport, said, ”We are running approximately close to 2,000 tests per day. We are also ensuring utmost care in handling the samples.” According to the Centre, the countries designated as ”at-risk” are European countries, including the UK, and South Africa, Brazil, Botswana, China, Mauritius, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Singapore, Hong Kong and Israel.
Travellers from these ”at-risk” countries are following additional measures on arrival in India from Tuesday midnight.
Under the new norms, RT-PCR tests are mandatory for passengers arriving from the ”at-risk” countries and they will be allowed to leave the airport only after the results come.
Also, five per cent of the passengers arriving in flights from other countries will be subject to the test randomly. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had Tuesday said the capital is prepared to set up 63,800 beds in case a third Covid-19 wave hits the city.
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