A four-and-a-half-year old girl who first tested positive for COVID-19 in Assam has now tested negative, state minister Himanta Biswa Sarma confirmed on Sunday. There are no confirmed cases for the virus in the state and the North East region so far.
“The 4-year-old child who was suspected of COVID-19 and tested in Jorhat Medical College and Regional Medical Research Centre, Dibrugarh has been found NEGATIVE,” Sarma tweeted. “There is no Covid-19 positive case in Assam so far.”
On Saturday, the Jorhat district administration had said that the sample of the girl had tested positive at the accredited laboratory of the Jorhat Medical College and Hospital. Her samples were sent to the ICMR centre in Lahowal for a second test. The girl along with her family had arrived from Bihar to Assam’s Jorhat city.
After a re-check, with the girl testing negative, Deputy Commissioner Roshni Aparanji Korati confirmed the news and said the doctors will now decide whether to continue isolation. “The girl, her sister and her mother came to Jorhat on 19th March,” Korati had earlier told The Indian Express. “ASHA [Accredited Social Health Activist], ANM [Auxiliary Nurse Midwife] and MPW [multipurpose health workers] visited the family on 20th and brought them to JMCH as the girl exhibited symptoms.” The family was later shifted to the JMCH isolation ward.
The child had been admitted with high fever. The Jorhat district deputy commissioner said she could be suffering from another strain of the virus as she had fever and cough, reported Hindustan Times.
In an attempt to keep coronavirus cases at bay, several states in the North East, including Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, and Sikkim, have sealed borders and prohibited entry to domestic and foreign visitors. Several other states have imposed partial or a complete shutdown to contain the spread of infections.
Meanwhile, India on Sunday began a 14-hour shutdown at 7 am on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for a “janata curfew” in an attempt to combat the spreading novel coronavirus.
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