Golaghat registers 79 positive cases in 24 hours

GOLAGHAT:  26 May 2020 6:02 p.m. The Golaghat district in upper Assam has emerged as a hotspot for COVID19 with 79 positive cases registered in the district in the last 24 hours.

The sudden rise in positive cases has created panic among the residents of the Golaghat town.

All the infected patients recently returned to Assam from various parts of the country and since their arrival in the district, they have been kept in various quarantine centres set up throughout the district.

In addition to this, five doctors, 13 health workers including nurses, cleaners and grade four staff members of Kushal Konwar Civil Hospital (KKCH) here have been sent for home quarantine.

The doctors, nurses and other health workers came in contact with a patient admitted to the medicine department of the hospital who tested positive for COVID19 on Tuesday.

According to sources, the positive patient was found stranded in a park in Kachomari area of the district by village defence party (VDP) and was first admitted to the Kachomari hospital from where he was referred to the KKCH on May 22.

"The patient seems to be mentally retarded. When we asked him from where does he belong, he only said Bihar. He was not able to provide any travel history," Dr Uttam Dutta, superintendent of KKCH, told Northeast Now .

"As a precautionary measure, we sent his sample for testing and unfortunately, it came positive last night," said Dr Dutta.

"Five of our doctors, who were attending to their duties in the medicine ward, have been sent for home quarantine. Theses doctors are Robin Tamuly, Sunita Ekka, Diganta Das, Bipul Das and Dipak Dutta," he added.

The hospital superintendent also said the medicine ward of the KKCH has been declared as 'Containment Zone'.

"A total of 48 people including doctors, nurses and patients have been quarantined and their swab samples have been sent for testing," Dr Dutta said.

As informed by Dr Dilip Rajbongshi, who is looking after the COVID19 hospital here, most of the other patients, who were tested positive, are 'asymptomatic'.

Earlier, 9 COVID19 patients were discharged from the hospital in Golaghat after their recovery.