Foreign national among two tests Covid positive at Kolkata airport

Two foreign returnees, including a British national, have tested positive for Covid-19 at the Kolkata airport, sources said on Monday.

The woman passenger with a British passport had arrived in Kolkata from Kuala Lumpur. The other passenger, a male, came from Dubai. He is said to be a resident of Bihar and returned on Monday.

Both samples have been sent for genome sequencing, news agency ANI reported quoting Kolkata airport sources.

News agency PTI reported that the British national has been shifted to an isolation ward of the state-run Beliaghata ID Hospital. An RT-PCR test has been conducted on the passenger.

The development from Kolkata comes even as samples of four foreigners who tested positive for Covid-19 at the Buddhist pilgrimage town of Gaya were sent for genome sequencing on Sunday, a senior medical officer of the district said.

The official said another person, a 60-year-old woman from the United Kingdom, also tested positive last week before the central government formally asked states to step up analysis of positive Covid-19 cases to detect new coronavirus variants amid a spiralling wave in China. She has returned to her country, Gaya civil surgeon Dr Ranjan Kumar Singh said.

Three of the four foreigners who tested positive on Sunday are from Thailand, the fourth is from Myanmar. Dr Singh said the five were asymptomatic and were randomly tested at the Gaya international airport last week.

Meanwhile, four international travellers from Myanmar tested positive for the coronavirus infection at the Delhi airport. The genome sequencing of their samples is being done, ANI reported.

“Four of the 690 Covid-19 sample tests of the International travellers from Myanmar at Delhi Airport have tested positive for the infection. The infected persons have been admitted at the Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital (RML) hospital in Delhi and their samples have been taken for genome sequencing,” people aware of the matter told the news agency.