30 CISF personnel quarantined after crash victim found Covid-19 positive
Senior officers from the CISF said on Saturday it was discovered that one of the passengers who had died in the crashes turned out to be infected with coronavirus.
As many as 30 CISF personnel who rescued passengers from the Air India Express flight that crashed in Kozhikode on Friday evening have been quarantined after at least two passengers onboard tested positive for Covid-19. The officials were quarantined on Saturday for the next 14 days.
The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) was the first responder to the crash site at Karipur airport where the Air India Express flight from Dubai with 190 people on board overshot the table-top runway, fell into a 35-feet deep valley and broke into two killing eighteen passengers, including the two pilots of the Boeing 737 aircraft.
Senior officers from the CISF said on Saturday it was discovered that one of the passengers who had died in the crashes turned out to be infected with coronavirus. “There were reports of another survivor being Covid-19 positive, however, it is yet to be ascertained. As a precautionary measure we have quarantined out personnel who were involved in rescuing these passengers,” the officer said requesting anonymity.
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Confirming the development, CISF Special Director General (Airports) M A Ganapathy said through contact tracing so far they have identified 30 CISF personnel who needed to be quarantined.
“13 of them who live with their families will remain under home quarantine while the other 17 have been quarantined in a college close to the airport in accordance with the state administration,” Ganapathy said.
Apart from these 30, the force will also conduct Covid-19 tests for those who were exposed, another officer said. He said some officials from the airport have also been asked to go into self-quarantine.
The state government has now urged the residents who helped in the rescue work to go into quarantine. “The state will always remember their work but we have to take precautions,” state health minister K K Shailaja said.
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