17 people brought to army quarantine facilities in Jaisalmer, Jodhpur test positive for coronavirus

NEW DELHI: Seventeen people, who are evacuees being kept at the army’s quarantine facilities in Jaisalmer and Jodhpur, have tested positive for the coronavirus, officials said on the condition of anonymity on Tuesday.
Out of the 17 people, nine have tested positive for the virus at the Army Wellness Centre in Jaisalmer. Out of these nine people, three tested positive on Tuesday, while six more had tested positive on Monday. These nine people are among the 484 Indians evacuated from Iran and brought to the Wellness Centre earlier this month. Iran is one of the worst coronavirus affected countries.

The remaining eight out of the 17 people have tested positive for the virus at the quarantine facility in Jodhpur. These eight cases are among the 552 people who were brought here, including 275 from Iran. Both the Jodhpur and Jaisalmer facilities have a capacity of housing around 1,000 people.

All evacuees are screened by medical teams at the airport before being taken to the quarantine facilities. The quarantine duration at the facilities is for 14 days. Two batches of people being quarantined cannot be mixed due to the fear of a contagion. If a person tests positive for the virus that person is isolated at a tertiary care hospital near the quarantine facility. However, these fresh cases of coronavirus at these facilities has raised a fear of a possible contagion, because people of one batch are living and eating together.

Earlier, three positive COVID-19 cases were reported from the armed forces run quarantine facilities at Hindon and Manesar. They were referred to the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi for further treatment.

Six quarantine facilities run by the armed forces are currently operational at Manesar, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Chennai, Hindan and Mumbai. So far, a total of 1,463 people, including foreigners, evacuated from coronavirus affected countries have been housed and observed at these centres. Out of them, 1,073 persons, which include evacuees from Iran, Italy, Japan and Malaysia, besides the IAF and medical crew, are presently under quarantine. Three hundred ninety evacuees from China, Japan and IAF evacuation flight crew have been discharged following completion of their mandatory quarantine period.

More such facilities at Kolkata, Visakhapatnam, Kochi, Dundigal near Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kanpur, Jaisalmer, Jorhat and Gorakhpur have been kept on standby.

Twenty-eight military hospitals have also been earmarked as COVID hospitals for managing purely coronavirus cases. This will include armed forces personnel and civilians transferred from state health authorities, in case their capacity is overwhelmed.