JORHAT, March 11 - The Jorhat district administration is keeping a close watch on the luxury cruise ferry MV Mahabahu Brahmaputra which has been anchored at a secluded sapori (sandbar) off the Brahmaputra near here since March 7 morning after an American tourist earlier travelling on the ferry tested positive for COVID-19 in Bhutan on March 6 last.
Speaking to�The Assam Tribune�this evening, Jorhat Deputy Commissioner Roshni A Korati said a close watch is being kept on the ferry having altogether 56 people (22 foreign tourists and 34 crew members) round the clock.
Korati said a team of IDSP (Integrated Diseases Surveillance Programme) led by a doctor comprising paramedics and health workers is regularly visiting the cruise ferry and taking stock of health conditions of the people on board.
She said so far the status of the people on board the ferry was stated to be normal with no reports of any symptoms of any disease.�
The Deputy Commissioner said the test reports of throat swabs of two persons on the ferry (a female tourist who was having some heart ailments and a crew member who had a fever on Friday night) and another three staff of Thengal Manor Resort, where the US tourist stayed for a night, were found to be negative. Korati said the test reports came from the Indian Council of Medical Research laboratory at Lahowal in Dibrugarh district.�
She said an elderly female tourist having heart ailment was shifted on Saturday to the Jorhat Medical College and Hospital isolation ward along with her daughter-in-law and a paramedic of the ship for better care and necessary treatment, has returned to the ferry after her health condition improved.
Regarding the taxi driver who brought the US tourist to Thengal Manor from the airport on February 22 and again dropped him at Neematighat the following day, the DC said efforts are on to trace the taxi driver.
Korati said all measures are taken to see that nobody from the luxury ferry disembark and visit nearby areas.
