SHILLONG: Amidst rising cases of the COVID-19 pandemic in the state, five patients were on Thursday discharged after consecutive test reports confirmed them to be free of coronavirus.
The state now has 25 active cases with 18 patients cured so far.
Deputy Chief Minister, Prestone Tynsong informed that retesting was done for the five patients in line with the norms laid down by the World Health Organization.
“They have been discharged to go home where they will have to undergo 14-day quarantine,” he said.
He further informed that a total of 12,153 samples have been tested out of which 11,839 have returned negative while reports of 270 samples are awaited.
No retest
The state government on Thursday ruled out retest of all the returnees despite a couple from Nongmynsong testing positive on Wednesday.
The couple had returned from Delhi on May 30 and had initially tested negative but were later confirmed as COVID-19 positive.
Director of Health Services, Dr. Aman War said that the government is not going for retest of all the returnees. “We have no plan to adopt a different approach in terms of retesting of the returnees for COVID-19. We will follow the same protocol by asking people to go for 14-day home quarantine if they test negative upon arrival,” Dr. War told newsmen here.
He asserted that the Health department had closely monitored the couple when they were under home quarantine.
“We had conducted the retest after the husband developed symptoms of COVID-19 and found him to be positive,” he said.
Referring to the 70-year-old man from Ri Bhoi who had recently been tested positive, Dr War said that the Health department is on the job to find out the source of the transmission.
