AGARTALA, May 26 - In a sudden surge, 11 more persons, including ten returnees from Mumbai and a woman from the 86th Battalion of the BSF, today tested positive for COVID-19. With this, the number of active COVID-19 positive cases has risen to 109 in Tripura.
Taking to the social media, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb tweeted, �Ten people who had returned from Mumbai by a special train found Covid positive while one female, wife of BSF jawan belonging to 86 Bn BSF was tested positive.�
So far, 30 positive cases have been detected among those who had returned from Mumbai in a special train on May 21.
Worried over the development, the Chief Minister has issued an instruction to conduct swab tests of all passengers coming from outside the State, especially from Maharashtra, a coronavirus hotspot.
Initially, the Tripura Government had decided to test one out of five returnees, but changed the strategy after detection of 16 and four positive cases on Sunday and Monday respectively.
A total 1,154 passengers arrived in a special train from Maharashtra on May 21 and swab tests were conducted on only 344 persons, following the 5:1 norm. Only one person was put under institutional quarantine, while all the others were asked to stay at home quarantine.
An instruction has already been issued to the district magistrates in this regard, and Health workers have already started collecting swabs of the remaining 810 persons who had travelled in the special train.
A government official said the decision of mass swab tests was taken to avoid any risk as all the returnees had come from various hotspots in Maharashtra.
Meanwhile, official sources said that seven special trains have arrived in Tripura from different places of the country so far, carrying a total of 8,280 passengers. As many as 30 returnees from Maharashtra and five from Chennai have tested positive. Three other returnees, who had boarded a train coming from Delhi at the New Jalpaiguri Railway Station in West Bengal, have also been confirmed as COVID-19 positive.
