PANAJI
The first three travellers from the United Kingdom, who had tested positive for Covid on arrival at Goa International Airport, have tested negative for the omicron variant of Covid.
Following their positive reports at the airport, their samples were sent for genome sequencing at the National Centre for Cell Science, Pune. All three were then isolated at Primary Health Centre, Cansaulim. While they have now been discharged from institutional isolation, they will continue to remain under home isolation as per the general Covid recovery protocols of the state government.
It may be recalled that these three passengers had alighted from flight AI 146 which arrived from the UK on December 10 with 237 passengers. All 'high-risk' contacts of these foreign nationals have been identified and placed on 14 days home quarantine with retesting advised on the eighth day. The Directorate of Health Services had succeeded in identifying 84 such 'high-risk' contacts.
Presently, Goa is testing all travellers from 'high-risk' countries at the Goa International Airport and only two per cent of the passengers from flights that arrive from non 'high-risk' countries.
Four more foreign nationals from Russia and Georgia were also isolated at PHC Cansaulim in the same manner after they tested positive for Covid. They have since tested negative for omicron.
Earlier this week, another traveller from the UK who arrived in Goa via Bangalore tested positive. The traveller was symptomatic and kept under isolation in PHC Cansaulim, the Health Minister had informed.
43 cases found
On Saturday, Goa recorded 43 new Covid cases of Covid placing the active count at 389. The State’s daily positivity rate stood at 1.24 per cent with 3,451 samples tested.
No deaths related to Covid were recorded on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the number of fully vaccinated persons in Goa has risen to 10.77 lakh and the number of partially vaccinated stands at 1.96 lakh.
