Arunachal, declared COVID-19 free, reports fresh case

Arunachal Pradesh, which was declared COVID-19 free over a month ago, reported a fresh case on Sunday as a 30-year-old student who recently returned from Delhi tested positive, a senior health official said.

The student, who used to live in West Patel Nagar area of Delhi, returned to the state on a bus on May 18, Health Secretary P Parthiban said.

He was in Delhi to prepare for UPSC civil services examination.

He boarded the bus at Gole Market area and it travelled through Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam.

There were 33 others in the bus with the student, the officer said.

On reaching Arunachal Pradesh, he was put in institutional quarantine, Parthiban said, adding that his swab sample was taken on May 22 and the report has come in as positive.

"The patient is totally asymptomatic and is being taken care of by our health team," he said.

The state and district-level contact-tracing team has started the process to track down all those people who came in the bus along with the student, and also those interacted with him, the official said.

Arunachal was declared COVID-19 free after the state's lone patient recovered and was discharged from hospital on April 17.

The 31-year-old man was from Medo area in Lohit district and had attended a religious congregation at Nizamuddin in Delhi in March. He reached Medo on March 18 and tested positive on April 2. He was kept in Tezu Zonal Hospital in an isolation ward.