Mizoram likely to be 6th corona-free N-E state

Out of the eight states in the northeast in India, Mizoram can become the sixth COVID-19 free state as the state's lone corona patient tested negative. The swab sample of the lone Mizoram patient had tested negative a few days back. After his samples were found negative in subsequent tests, the doctors would decide about his release from the hospital.

Aizawl/Guwahati: Mizoram would soon be the sixth COVID-19- free state out of the eight states in northeast India as the state's lone corona patient tested negative while after five days, a fresh positive case was found in Assam.

"The swab sample of the lone Mizoram patient had tested negative a few days back. After his samples were found negative in subsequent tests, the doctors would decide about his release from the hospital," Mizoram's Health and Family Welfare Director H. Lalchungnunga told reporter on Tuesday.

"The patient's condition is stable," he said.

The 50-year-old Christian pastor from Mizoram had tested positive for coronavirus after he returned to Aizawl from Amsterdam, Netherlands via Delhi and Guwahati on March 16 and then admitted to the Zoram Medical College and Hospital.

The Mizoram man's wife and two children's swab samples had earlier tested negative and they are staying at home.

Health officials in Aizawl said that four people, including two women, from Mizoram tested positive for Covid-19 in Maharashtra in the third week of April. All the four people, three of them are cancer patients, along with their relatives had been living in Mizoram House in Mumbai. A doctor from Mizoram, who worked in a hospital in Meghalaya, also tested positive for coronavirus in Shillong on April 14.

In Guwahati, Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said in a tweet on Tuesday that a 16-year-old girl from Salmara Bongaigaon (western Assam), secondary contact of a (Nizamuddin) Markaz attendee, has tested positive for coronavirus.

"The number of COVID-19 patients in Assam now stands at 36. However active cases undergoing treatment in the hospitals are now eight," the Minister said.

Sarma told the media in Guwahati most of the patients undergoing treatments in various medical colleges and hospitals are expected to be released within few days.

While no positive case was reported from Sikkim and Nagaland, the other six northeastern states have so far reported 55 coronavirus positive cases.

Five of the eight northeastern states - Sikkim, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Tripura -- are currently free from coronavirus and its spread has been mostly tamed in other three states -- Assam, Meghalaya and Mizoram.

Two persons, a senior doctor in Meghalaya and a 65-year-old Covid-19 patient in Assam, have died. Of Assam's 36 cases, 35 people directly or indirectly participated in the Delhi's Nizamuddin Tablighi Jamaat congregation last month. Of the 55 cases detected so far in the northeastern states, there are only 21 active cases -- eight in Assam, 11 in Meghalaya and one in Mizoram.

(IANS REPORT)