20 COVID-19 cases in Assam, NE tally rises to 24

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Guwahati/Agartala, April 3 (IANS) With more fresh positive coronavirus cases getting reported from the region, the total number of cases in the northeast went up to 24 on Friday, including 20 in Assam, ministers and officials said.

Of the 24 positive cases, 22 took part in the Tablighi Jamaat congregation at Nizamuddin Markaz in Delhi while a Manipuri girl and a Mizoram man had tested positive last month after they returned from the UK and the Netherlands, respectively.

Besides the 24 positive cases in the northeastern region, four persons from Assam and two people from Tripura, who attended the congregation but remained in northern India, have tested positive for COVID-19.

According to Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, four attendees of the Tablighi event held last month from the state's Nalbari and South Salmara district have tested positive for coronavirus on Friday, taking the state's tally to 20.

The Health Minister said that four persons from Assam, who attended the religious meet but remained in Delhi, after their swab samples tested positive for nCoV.

Sarma had earlier said that the Centre has communicated to the state that over 550 to 600 people from Assam had attended the Tablighi meet.

"Out of these attendees, swab samples of around 500 have been collected and the test reports are awaited," Sarma said.

"I am very angry and frustrated as despite our repeated appeals, none of the participants reported to the authority. Why are you hiding your cases?" Sarma told a national television channel.

In Agartala, Tripura Health Secretary Debashish Basu on Friday night said that two people from Tripura, who had participated the Tablighi Jamaat congregation, have tested positive for novel coronavirus and now they are in a quarantine center at Bikaner in Rajasthan.

"Eleven people from Tripura's Boxanagar areas (western Tripura) attended the Tablighi Jamaat event. After attending the meet all the eleven people went to Rajasthan. The officials of Rajasthan government verbally informed us that two of the eleven people have tested positive for novel coronavirus," Basu told the media.

Of the 24 positive cases from northeastern region, 22 took part in the Tablighi Jamaat congregation while a Manipuri girl and a Mizoram man had tested positive last month after they returned from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, respectively.

Health officials in Imphal and Aizawl said that their conditions are states now. Of the 24 positive cases from four northeastern states, 20 are from Assam, two from Manipur and one each from Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram.

Assam had reported its first Covid-19 case on Tuesday when a 52-year-old man's swab sample tested positive. According to the health officials, all the patients in Assam are aged between 19 and 70 years and are undergoing treatment at different hospitals in in the state.

According to the ministers and officials of northeastern states, at least 600 people from several northeastern states, mostly from Assam, had either attended or were in vicinity of the Tablighi congregation, forcing all seven states to launch an all-out search to identify and test these persons.

The attendees' family members and the people they came in close contact with are also being examined or sent to quarantine.

Tripura Health Secretary also said that that swab samples of 36 people who attended the Tablighi meet or went to the Nizamuddin area, have tested negative.

--IANS

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