Guwahati/Agartala, April 10 (IANS) One more Covid-19 case was detected in Assam on Thursday night, taking the state’s positive cases to 29 while the total number of positive cases in the northeastern region climbed to 34, ministers and officials said.
Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, in a tweet, said: “A person from Dhubri district, who was in contact with the first patient (with Markaz linkage) from the same district, has been confirmed as COVID-19 positive. The total number of Covid patients in Assam now stands at 29.”
Dhubri district in western Assam borders Bangladesh.
Apart from Assam, the other case are in Manipur (two), and Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura (one each) and 28 of the 34 took part in the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi last month, while a Manipuri woman and a Mizoram man had tested positive last month after they returned from the UK and the Netherlands, respectively.
A 65-year-old man from Assam’s Hailakandi district whose sample tested positive two days ago has a travel history to Saudi Arabia and returned to his home recently via Delhi.
According to officials in Silchar Medical College, the condition of the man, a former employee of madrassa education board, is very critical and he is being treated in the Intensive Care Unit of the medical college.
A 52-year-old trader in Assam’s Kamrup (Metro) district has also been infected with coronavirus.
Besides, four persons from Assam and eight from Tripura, who had attended the Jamaat congregation, have tested positive for Covid-19 and are under treatment in hospitals in north India.
Assam’s Golaghat district has reported the highest number of nine cases followed by four each from Nalbari and Morigaon districts, three from Goalpara, two each at Silchar and Dhubri, one each from Hailakandi, Kamrup (Metro), Kamrup, Lakhimpur and South Salmara district.
Sarma told the media in Guwahati that the state government is considering issuing entry permits as a temporary measure to regulate the entry of people into Assam after the nationwide lockdown ends.
“This temporary permit would be a special entry certificate and not on the lines of Inner Line Permit, as is mandatory in the other northeastern states,” Sarma said, adding that legal action would be taken under the Disaster Management Act against those people who are hiding after attending the Nizamuddin event.
“We are concerned that once the lockdown is lifted and inter-state transport is resumed, there would be a lot of pressure since there are thousands of people from Assam and other northeastern states who are stranded in different parts of the country and would try to come back to their homes,” the minister said.
Assam is the gateway for six other northeastern states.
–IANS
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