Three test positive for coronavirus in Andaman & Nicobar; total count jumps to 5

Three more persons tested positive for novel coronavirus in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, taking the total count of confirmed cases in the Union Territory to five on Thursday, officials said.

Three more persons tested positive for novel coronavirus in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, taking the total count of confirmed cases in the Union Territory to five on Thursday, officials said. The newly infected persons are family members of the returnee from Chennai by a flight on June 7, who had tested positive four days back.

They have been admitted to G B Pant hospital here, where the man is undergoing treatment, the sources said. The administration has declared Prathrapur colony, where four of the five infected persons resided, as a hotspot area.

The fresh covid wave has arrived in the island, a month after it stayed infection-free. On June 7, besides the returnee from Chennai, wife of a defence staff flying back home from Delhi had tested positive.

She is a housewife and had got stuck in the national capital during lockdown and flew back to Port Blair on June 7 by an Indigo flight. Andaman & Nicobar Islands had remained free from coronavirus for past one month when all the 33 patients had tested nagative after recovery by May 10.

Novel coronavirus had knocked on the door of the archipelago when nine persons, who returned from Delhi's Tablighi Jamaat event mid-March, were found to have contracted the disease in late March. They were immediately separated to check spread of infections.

The situation was managed well, but unfortunately two others. who had gone to Chennai tested positive for the virus on return then. They, in turn, infected several others, raising the count in the Union Territory to 33, but all of them recovered and went back home subsequently.