Bihar: 45 UK returnees untraceable, 101 test negative for new Covid strain

The ministry of civil aviation had sent the state a list of 226 passengers who reached Bihar between November 21 and December 21. At least 96 of these passengers are believed to be from Patna

Forty-five of the 226 air passengers, who reached Bihar from the United Kingdom between mid-November and December, are still untraceable as the government has stepped up its efforts to reach to them and test them for the new strain of coronavirus.

Representational image. (AP)

However, 101 of the 181 passengers traced so far have tested negative for the virus, according to Khalid Arshad, administrative officer of the state health society, Bihar.

“Samples of 101 passengers were collected and sent for RT-PCR test. Sample collection of rest of the traced passengers is under process. None of the samples has tested positive till now,” said Arshad.

The ministry of civil aviation (MoCA) had sent the state a list of 226 passengers who reached Bihar between November 21 and December 21.

At least 96 of these passengers are believed to be from Patna.

“It is not easy to trace all of them (passengers who came from UK). We have sent the name, contact number and address of passengers, according to the list provided by the MoCA, to our medical officers in-charge of community health centres (CHCs) to track them and collect their swab samples. Our officials are finding it difficult to trace them in some cases as all of them do not reside at the address provided to us,” said Dr Vibha Kumari Singh, Patna’s civil surgeon.

Swab samples of those who could be located are being tested at the Rajendra Memorial Research Institute of Medical Sciences (RMRIMS), a laboratory of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in Patna’s Agamkuan.

The state health department had asked its functionaries to trace and collect samples of all such passengers by December 30 and requested the RMRIMS to expedite their testing through RT-PCR method.

The health department has already requested all UK returnees to isolate themselves and contact their nearest government health facility for the RT-PCR test.