All persons with a recent foregin travel history and being monitored in home isolation by a team of paramedical staff will undergo COVID-19 swab test (whether symptomatic or asymptomatic) at the Government Medical College VDRL Microbiology Laboratory at Anantapur from Monday.
District Medical and Health officials are in the process of preparing a time schedule for collection of samples with the help of medical personnel so that all 461 persons in the urban and semi-urban areas are covered from among the 829 such suspects being monitored. State government has assured the laboratory here of sending adequate testing kits by Sunday/Monday so that all of the 461 in the ‘below 14 days isolation period’ category could be tested when the viral load in the body is maximum.
Only in two cases, those who had travelled to Anantapur district or living here and went to Karnataka, they tested positive and of them a woman, who had returned from Haj, died on March 24 night at Gauribidanur in Karnataka and another 64-year-old male is recovering in designated hospital in Bengaluru Rural District.
Thirty relatives of the COVID-19 positive woman have been quarantined in Hindupur hospital and another 145 persons with whom she had come in contact during her visit to Hindupur after Haj visit, have been home isolated and monitored, District Collector Gandham Chandrudu and District Medical and Health Officer KVNS Anil Kumar told The Hindu. Meanwhile, out of 9 persons in isolation ward at the GGH, Anantapur, three were discharged on Friday and currently only six are undergoing observation for their symptoms.
District Administration has tracked all the people who came in contact with the 64-year-old France-returned person and home isolated them at Puttaparthi. None of the 27 samples sent from Anantapur tested positive so far and the result of a couple of them is awaited.
