OUR CORRESPONDENT
ITANAGAR: The Arunachal Pradesh Health Department has appealed to the people stranded outside the State to defer their journey back home if possible, as the testing labs for COVID-19 are overwhelmed after testing was made mandatory for all returnees.
Citing various reasons and asking for patience, State Surveillance Officer (Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme) Dr L Jampa in a statement said, "I also make a strong appeal to those who are still stranded outside the State to kindly defer their journey".
He said that 5,600, out of the 11,000 who had registered online, have returned from different parts of the country, which has led to increased load in the laboratories, resulting in increased backlog for testing and sharing of results.
"We have requested the laboratories to expedite the process and we hope that the gaps will be reduced in the coming week," he said.
The State has seen a huge jump in sample collection since it made testing mandatory for all the returnees.
Meanwhile, Dr Jampa informed that the person who tested for COVID-19 is currently asymptomatic and is taken care of at a COVID Care Centre as per the standard operating procedure.
The Health department has also urged the people of the State not to panic and restrain from discriminating anybody who has been detected positive for COVID-19 and those who have returned back to the home-State.
"We all need to understand that they are our own people", Dr Jampa said and appealed for all to extend full cooperation in the fight against the COVID-19.