New Corona Strain:Nagaland State health department to track and monitor UK-returnees

Kohima: The state department of Health and Family Welfare, Nagaland is going to implement immediate strategies to enable tracking and monitoring of passengers returned from the United Kingdom (UK). The decision comes after news of the spread of new strain of the Covid virus emerged in media, officials stated in a press release.

Dr. Vizolie Z. Suokhrie, Principal Director of the Health department said that the passengers returned from UK after December 20 would be tracked by the State Surveillance Units (SSUs) and District Surveillance Units (DSUs) under Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme of Union Health Department. He further mentioned that testing of the returnees as per the ICMR guidelines will be done upon their arrival.

It maybe mentioned that the state's decision comes in response to the directives issued by National Task Force (NTF) in light of the new mutant strain which has recently spread all across from Britain. The strategies planned by the government will come with immediate effect to control and contain the spread of the virus in the state.

Already a rule has been made for passengers who have arrived in Nagaland after December 20, whether foreigners or Indian nationals, to report to the District Task Force (DTF) for Covid-19 for mandatory testing. The official release further said that in case any individual is found positive, their samples will be sent for Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS). Enhanced contact tracing of the Covid positive individuals also will be conducted and later, the contacts will be mandatorily quanrantined as well.

Through the release, it was further reminded to the people that they will only be discharged after properly ensuring that two of their samples have tested negative after a mandated period of fourteen days. As per reports, 5 percent of all positive cases will be forwarded for WGS by the Health department. 

Notably, the state of Nagaland has a recovery rate of 95.94 percent since Friday, which is higher than the national average.

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