GUWAHATI: Assam Health Department has mounted surveillance against coronavirus pandemic in bordering districts of Dhubri and Kokrajhar in view of worsening scenario in neighbouring districts of West Bengal.
Assam Health and Family Welfare Minister, Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma informed that at least 150 random swab samples would be collected for COVID-19 test from Bilasipara, Chapor and Dhubri town given that there has been a gradual increase in number of COVID-19 positive cases in Dhubri which so far has five COVID-19 positive cases out of the total 35 cases in the state.
The random swab samples will be tested in Barpeta Medical College and Hospital on April 26.
Assam health department has so far tested 6459 samples for COVID-19 stats and out of those 3214 were tested in Guwahati Medical College and Hospital. Other tests centres in the state are Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC) at Lahowal, Medical colleges at Barpeta, Silchar, Jorhat and Tezpur.
The state now has 2.44 lakh PPE kits, 35,000 N-95 masks and 50,000 three-layer masks.
As per the guidelines of the ICMR, the State Health Department conducted rapid tests on 91 residents at Spanish Garden in the city on Thursday and all tested negative. Spanish Garden was declared a containment zone after a resident, Manish Tibrewal, was tested COVID-19 positive. The containment zone tag will be removed from the residential complex now.
“Rapid tests was also conducted on COVID-19 positive patients in Mohendra Mohan Choudhury Hospital here and all were tested positive,” the minister informed saying that it was done to test the efficacy of the rapid test kits which has been prescribed by ICMR to be used for surveillance purpose rather than for confirmation test.
The state so far detected 35 COVID-19 positive cases out of which one died and 19 have been discharged for hospital. One more patient is likely to be discharged from hospital on Saturday. Moreover, one patient from Nagaland is also undergoing treatment in Assam.