The State Health department is still searching for possible missing links of asymptomatic patients in north Kerala to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Many may have dodged thermal screening at the Calicut and Mangaluru airports or may have deliberately provided sketchy details of their travel history.
“About 95% of positive cases are those with travel history to West Asia and their contacts. The Health Department has collected the list of domestic and international passengers from the Mangaluru airport a week prior to the suspension of flights,” said A.T. Manoj, Nodal Medical Officer for Kasaragod and Kanhangad.
Measures such as bringing air passengers in specially arranged vehicles to Thalappady and subjecting them to either home quarantine or hospitalisation have yielded positive results in preventing community transmission. “To a great extent, we have been able to identify the suspected patients and their primary contacts,” said Dr. Manoj, adding that work still remained on finding if some were left out of the list.
Tracing suspects has been a daunting task for health officials in the neighbouring Kannur district, which has a reasonable number of cases. “Volunteers of the Integrated Child Development Services and Accredited Social Health Activist have been involved in isolating patients,” said A.K. Jayasree of Kannur Medical College.
Some of the participants of Tablighi Jamaat at Nizamuddin, especially those who travelled in trains, may also have remained off the radar of the district administrations in north Kerala.
Authorities of the Calicut International Airport have been helping the districts of Malappuram, Kozhikode and Palakkad identify passengers.
A total of 59,691 passengers arrived in 444 international flights from March 1 to 22, while 13,031 reached the airport in domestic flights during the period.
“However, tracing suspected patients has its limits. At times, local people inform us about undetected passengers,” said C.J. Michael of Government General Hospital, Kozhikode.
