Admn takes up contact tracing of Covid positive with Air India

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, March 19

The authorities in Jammu and Kashmir have asked Air India to share the details of the 40 pilgrims who were travelling with the first positive Covid-19 case of Kashmir from Saudi Arabia.

The 67-year-old woman, who was tested positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday, arrived in Kozhikode, Kerala, in an Air India flight on March 15 from Jeddah along with 40 other pilgrims.

From there, she travelled in a connecting Air India flight through Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Chandigarh and finally reached the Srinagar airport on March 16.

“We have started contact tracing from Wednesday afternoon and taken up the matter with Air India. We have also shared her flight details with the Kerala Government and other states so that they could trace the contact persons, if any,” said the nodal officer for Covid-19, Kashmir, Dr Manzoor Qadri.

“Since her flight duration from Chandigarh and Srinagar is less than six hours, we have to trace only those people sitting in the two rows in front of her and two rows behind her in the flight,” Qadri said.

Officials said the woman was accompanied by her husband and 40 other Kashmiri persons for the Umrah pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. “All of them will be put under observation,” officials said. Qadri said she was found asymptomatic at the Srinagar airport.

Her coronavirus symptoms were diagnosed on March 16 at the SMHS hospital in Srinagar, from where she went to the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), Soura.

Officials said they had identified 13 contact persons and put them in quarantine, including four at SKIMS.

Her daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren have been quarantined at SKIMS, while her son, his wife and their two children have been home quarantined. Also, her younger daughter, along with her child, have been home quarantined.

Qadri said a Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP)-rank officer, who is the son-in-law of the woman, had been home quarantined.

“We have quarantined her four family members at SKIMS, suspecting they might have contracted the virus,” said Director, Health Services Kashmir, Dr Samir Ji Mattoo. Meanwhile, SKIMS nodal officer for Covid-19, Dr Ghulam Hassan Yatoo, said, “Her condition is stable. She is responding well to treatment.”

At least 14 patients were quarantined at the SKIMS, Yatoo said. “Two were admitted for treatment,” he said. Soon after her test came positive, the authorities held house-to-house inspections and conducted investigations to ascertain whether someone living within the radius of 300m from her house in the Khanyar locality in Srinagar had come in contact with the infected person.

At least 48 persons in Kashmir have been tested for Covid-19 and 41 had been found negative. The results of six were awaited, officials said.