The number of COVID-19 cases in the northeast touched 31 on Saturday, 25 of them from Assam.
All but three of these cases have been related to the Tablighi Jamaat congregation at Nizamuddin in Delhi last month.
At 11.16 a.m. on Saturday, Assam’s Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma tweeted about the 25th case from North Lakhimpur district. “This patient is also related to #NizamuddinMarkaz event in Delhi,” he wrote.
This was the fifth case reported in a little less than 12 hours since Friday night. They included the first case from Guwahati – a businessman in his fifties who had self-quarantined after arrival from a destination outside Assam less than a month ago but had reportedly attended a Holi party.
He is from one of the poshest apartment complexes in Guwahati.
“We are contact-tracing all who came in contact with the man during his travel as well as after emerging from quarantine,” a health official said, declining to be quoted.
The first COVID-19 positive case – a 23-year-old woman who had returned from the U.K. – was reported from Manipur’s capital Imphal on March 23. The following day, a 50-year-old pastor who had returned from the Netherlands tested positive in Mizoram’s capital Aizawl.
No case was reported from Assam for nearly a week until a 52-year-old cancer patient, who officials said had stayed at the Nizamuddin centre, tested positive in southern Assam’s Silchar Medical College and Hospital on March 31. By 9 p.m. that day, the number of cases shot up to 13.
All of them had returned from Nizamuddin, most failing to report to the nearest health centre or police station as had been sought, Mr. Sarma said.
On April 2, Manipur Chief Minister Nongthombam Biren Singh and his Arunachal Pradesh counterpart Pema Khandu reported there was one COVID-19 positive case in each of their States – both linked to Nizamuddin.
Arunachal Pradesh officials, however, said the person who tested positive was a non-local residing temporarily in Lohit district for trade.
In the last 24 hours, two persons from Tripura who attended the Nizamuddin event tested positive too. They were under treatment in Rajasthan, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb said.
In Guwahati, Mr. Sarma told newspersons on Friday that officials established contact with 488 of the 503 delegates from Assam who had attended the religious congregation. Samples were collected from 361 people, with some of the test results expected by Saturday evening.
