KOLKATA: Two international passengers tested positive for Covid during random screening at Kolkata airport between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. The duo was among the 100 flyers who underwent RT-PCR tests at the airport following the Centre’s guidelines to states that included random testing of 2% international flyers on arrival starting Saturday.
While one of them is undergoing observation at the Infectious Diseases and Beliaghata General Hospital, state health department officials are trying to track the other who left for home after immigration check from the airport. The two positive samples have been sent for genome sequencing.
The flyer admitted at ID Hospital is a 48-year-old healthcare activist from Perth who holds dual citizenship of Australia and the UK, health department officials said.
She reached Kolkata around 1am on Sunday from Kuala Lumpur in an AirAsia flight and was scheduled to fly to Gaya on Sunday afternoon and had thus checked in at a hotel near the airport. When her Covid-positive report arrived, health officials escorted her to the ID Hospital. She has very low viral load, doctors said.
One of the two international flyers who tested Covid-positive at the Kolkata airport during random screening has been admitted at the Beliaghata ID Hospital. “We have admitted her in our isolation cabin. She is almost asymptomatic and cooperating with our team.
She had tested positive in her country and was allowed to fly after five days of quarantine, which is the regulation in Australia. But since our rule is seven-day quarantine, she will continue to be under our watch. In the meantime, we have sent another sample from her to NICED.
Once the report comes we will decide on the next course of action in consultation with Swasthya Bhawan,” said pulmonologist Kausik Chaudhuri, nodal officer for Covid-19 at ID Hospital. The other Covid-positive flyer is a male Indian national who arrived from Dubai on Saturday afternoon.
“He submitted his samples at the desk and left the airport. When the results arrived after four hours, we alerted the state health department,” said a senior official at Kolkata airport. Health officials said attempts were being made to trace him and he probably was a native of a neighbouring state.
“Asymptomatic positive flyers can undergo the seven-day isolation either at home or a hotel under the health department’s watch. The symptomatic ones have the option of getting admitted to ID Hospital or any other private hospital of their choice,” said state director of health services Siddhartha Niyogi.
The airport authorities in Kolkata recently called back the agency – HLL – that had been conducting RT-PCR and rapid tests on arriving flyers for one and a half years.
It had wrapped up their operations and relocated their equipment from within the terminal. But they still had a unit outside the airport with which they started the operation on Saturday. They are planning to bring back further equipment by this week.
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