Nearly 1,800 people in Andaman and Nicobar Islands were quarantined, including 75 passengers of two flights that had carried nine people who tested positive for the coronavirus, NDTV reported on Tuesday. The nine patients had been a part of the religious gathering in Delhi’s Nizamuddin area where several Covid-19 cases may have originated.

Out of the total number of people quarantined, 1,500 went to the Andamans for a visit in the last few weeks.

Andaman Police chief Depender Pathak told NDTV that two of the nine people had tested positive for the coronavirus at the airport and that his team was the first to find a link between the two patients and the Nizamuddin case. “At the immigration point, two of them tested positive,” Pathak said. “We were among the first ones to report of connections of first two COVID-19 positive patients with Tablighi Markaz in Nizamuddin.”

Advertisement

Seven others had been quarantined and later tested positive. The wife of one of the patients has also tested positive. Screening of travellers to Andamans began on March 11, Pathak said.


Also read: A religious conference in Delhi sparks largest Covid-19 tracking operation in India

The nine patients attended the religious conference in Delhi earlier this month and travel backed to the Union Territory on March 24. Seven of them took a Vistara flight and two people boarded an IndiGo plane from Delhi to Port Blair, News18 reported.

Advertisement

On Tuesday, 24 more people who attended the religious conference in Delhi tested positive for the coronavirus. Seven people who attended the gathering have died of Covid-19 – six in Telangana and one in Kashmir.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal described the religious gathering at the mosque as “irresponsible” and said such an event should not have been organised amid the coronavirus pandemic. He said 1,548 people had been brought out of Nizamuddin Markaz so far and 441 of them were symptomatic. They were shifted to hospitals and their tests were being conducted. Out of these, 1,107 people did not show symptoms and were sent into quarantine.