GUWAHATI, May 9 - The Regional Dental College Hostel, which currently has 40 boarders, was today declared a containment zone after a PG student tested positive for COVID-19 last night. Principal of the College Dr AC Bhuyan said Dr Deepa Deka of Nalbari had volunteered for COVID-19 duty and was deployed in the screening area of GMCH from April 25 to May 1, after which she was asked to go on self quarantine.
�After a doctor in the screening area tested positive a day before, we sent samples of four girls from our college who were also doing screening duty there. Deepa�s result was positive for COVID-19, while the other three were negative,� Dr Bhuyan said. Deepa is now admitted at GMCH, but doctors said she was healthy and had no symptoms.
The dental college was closed for treatment since the lockdown and only palliative care was being provided there.
The canteen has been shut and the hostel area was today declared a containment zone. Samples of all the 40 boarders � mostly PG students and interns � have been sent for tests. All structures in and around the dental college and GMCH are being sanitized.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said samples of 529 staff of GMCH have been sent for tests. �We got the results of 357... all are negative. We are in the process of collecting the samples of other staff and patients,� Sarma said.
Even though the test results are negative, the contacts of Dr Litikesh VS, who had tested positive for COVID-19, will have to be in quarantine for some days and go for another test after a week or so.
Ending speculations that if Guwahati could be put under orange zone category following the detection of five new positive cases, Sarma, citing the population of the city, said the government is averse to shutting down the district completely. �Instead, we will go for containment and buffer zone strategy, so that public inconvenience is minimum,� he said.
No fresh COVID-19 case was detected today till evening. The total number of cases stands at 59. Thirty four have been discharged after treatment so far.
