GUWAHATI: The Assam heath department has so far collected 361 samples of the 488 attendees of the religious congregation in Delhi and the results would be out by Friday noon, state health minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Thursday afternoon.
“Our target is to detect 503 persons who had returned to the state after attending the religious congregation at Nizamuddin Markaz. So far we have contacted 488 persons while samples of 361 persons out of them have been collected and tests conducted. As many as 395 people who attended the religious congregation have been quarantined so far,” Sarma told reporters here.
He further lauded the health department, administration and the local people for tracing so many attendees of the religious congregation in such a short span of time even as he appealed to those who were “still in hiding” to come out and inform the local administration for getting their health check up done.
As many as 16 COVID-19 positive cases have been reported from the state till Thursday evening.
“We are now trying to locate all those persons with whom the 488 people had come in contact with. Besides, we have come to know about two the persons from the Northeast who had attended the religious congregation and have tested positive for corona virus. We will be tracing whether they had come in contact with any person in Assam on their return to the states,” Sarma said.
The health minister said that the battle against the virus would be a long one till vaccines for treating COVID-19 patients were available.
Sarma also inaugurated anew ICU and dialysis block at the Guwahati Medical College Hospital on Thursday. “GMCH now has 162 ICU beds with ventilation for treatment of COVID patients. In the next 15 days, the medical college will have another 50 ICU beds
Meanwhile, the All Assam Minorities Students Union has appealed to all the returnees from the religious congregation in Delhi to report to the local administration and get their health check-ups done in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak taking a serious turn in Assam.
“Our earnest appeal to the Assam attendees of the Nizamuddin Markaz to immediately contact the police and health centres without any fear and get their health check-up done. Besides, the AAMSU central, district and zonal office bearers also need to identify such people and report to the administration if they trace them,