[ Karyir Riba ]
ROING, 11 May: Eleven children and staffers of the child care institute (CCI) here in Lower Dibang Valley district, including the CCI’s chairperson and her 12-year-old daughter, have tested positive for the coronavirus and are under home isolation for the last five days.
CCI chairperson Desai Linggi informed that everyone’s condition is stable, and that they are getting regular medical attention from healthcare workers.
Linggi herself had returned from Delhi on 23 April, where she had had a surgery. Despite testing negative at the Dibrugarh airport, she isolated herself on her return in one of the empty buildings in the CCI campus.
After suffering from fever, dizziness and nausea, she got a retest done on 26 April and tested positive.
Then, on 6 May, the watchman of the CCI campus tested positive, and on 7 May, two staffers and six children of the CCI and Linggi’s daughter tested positive.
“These children had complained about fever. At first we thought it was a simple viral fever as there was no outside contact. However, we segregated them from the others as a precautionary measure. On the next day, we got them tested and they were positive. We still do not know the source of the virus,” Linggi said.
Linggi urged all other CCIs and similar facilities to be aware and segregate any child as soon as any symptom occurs, and to get the child tested for Covid-19. “No staffer should be allowed to come from outside, and no one should be allowed to make any kind of contact with any outsider,” she said.
The CCI is run by the Nani Maria Society, and it caters to the whole eastern region of the state. It is dedicated to destitute, runaway, abandoned and orphaned children.
Meanwhile, the district recorded 16 positive cases out of 193 samples collected on Tuesday. Thirteen of them are symptomatic.
Twenty-three people recovered on Tuesday, and there are 210 active cases in the district as of now.
The positivity rate has increased to 8.2 percent from 6.7 percent on Monday.
