Woman returns to Andhra Pradesh from UK, tests positive for new Covid-19 strain

Mary Winfred Ann Parrie, a private school teacher at Rajahmundry, was infected with the new strain of virus which was recently found in the UK, as confirmed by Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB).

An Anglo-Indian woman who tested positive for Covid-19 at New Delhi airport on her return from London managed to give a slip to the authorities in Delhi and came to Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh’s East Godavari district by train last week. She has been found infected with the new strain of Sars-Cov-2.

Image for representation. (Bloomberg)

State health commissioner Katamaneni Bhaskar said on Tuesday that Mary Winfred Ann Parrie, a private school teacher at Rajahmundry, was infected with the new strain of virus which was recently found in the UK, as confirmed by Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), which has done genome sequencing of her nasopharyngeal swab samples.

The sample, collected by the authorities at the government hospital at Rajahmundry, was sent to the CCMB on Friday and the outcome of the test was declared on Monday.

Bhaskar said the health condition of the Anglo-Indian woman, who is presently in an isolation ward in the hospital, was perfect and she did not have any other ailments.

Soon after landing, she was subject to testing for Covid-19 at the health centre at the New Delhi international airport. The airport authorities handed her over to Safdarjung Hospital the following day for treatment.

Since she was asymptomatic, she was asked to be in quarantine for seven days. After getting her out-patient card slip done, she quietly left the place without informing the authorities after which the authorities could not find out her whereabouts.

On December 23, East Godavari district authorities received a communication from Additional District Magistrate of Delhi (North-East) Shubhankar Ghosh, stating that Parrie, along with her 22-years old son Riyan who came to receive her at the airport, might be travelling to her home town Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh Express train.

“Since she is Corona positive, there is apprehension of transmission of the infection to other people. As per the protocol, she has to be isolated in institutional quarantine,” Ghosh said in the letter, requesting the East Godavari district authorities to get her admitted to any institutional quarantine facilities.

The state health authorities went on high alert and informed both the railway police and the local police authorities. “As soon as the train arrived in Rajahmundry railway station during the early hours of December 24, the police located Parrie and her son getting down from a first-class compartment. The authorities made her and her son sport the PPE kits and drove them straight to the Rajahmundry government hospital.

In the morning, both Parrie and Riyan underwent different Covid-19 tests again. “The mother was found positive and Riyan negative in the Rapid Antigen Test. The hospital authorities have also conducted RT-PCR and VLM (Viral Lysis Medium) tests on both of them and the results were the same,” East Godavari district coordinator of medical and health department Dr Ramesh Kishore said.

The authorities admitted the mother-son duo in separate isolation wards in the hospital and started looking out for the passengers who might have come in contact with them during their travel.

Kishore said, initially the authorities proposed to send her swab samples to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, but later changed their mind and sent them to CCMB on Friday, which is one of the designated centres to test the new Sars-Cov-2 strain.

Meanwhile, inquiries by the authorities revealed that the mother-son duo, who travelled in the first-class compartment, did not come in contact with anybody. “Except her son, no other person got in touch with the woman. Even her son tested negative,” the health commissioner said.