Persons under institutional quarantine to be discharged after due
testing
Port Blair, Apr 7: The Ministry of Health &
Family Welfare, Govt. of India has issued Guidelines with reference to
management of persons in home/institutional quarantine facilities. The latest
guidelines issued on 05.04.2020 provided
that the persons who are under Institutional Quarantine will only be discharged
from quarantine facilities after due testing from the designated laboratory.
These samples for tests shall be taken on 13th or 14th day of their quarantine
period. Thereafter, the respective State/UT Administration will wait for the
results of tests from the designated laboratory and after taking into account
the tests results, the persons who are under Institutional Quarantine will be
discharged. Further, they will be released with the direction to self-monitor
their health at their homes (home quarantine) for next 14 days and immediately
report to the District Surveillance Officer (DSO) or call 102/232102 in case of
development of symptoms suggestive of COVID-19.
In this
regard, the UT Administration of Andaman & Nicobar Islands is currently
keeping 400 suspect cases under Institutional Quarantine in Govt. Guest
Houses/Private Hotels. These are the persons who travelled from mainland to the
Islands as well as suspect cases who are the contacts of confirmed cases. The
process of testing of these suspects has been started and will be completed
within 02-03 days. Therefore, persons who are under Institutional Quarantine
should wait for the results of tests of COVID-19 being performed on them. As
soon as the test results are communicated by RMRC-ICMR, Dollygunj, Port Blair,
the Administration will consider the discharge of quarantine. This is required
to ensure that the discharged person is 100% free from the infection of the
virus.
The Deputy Commissioner, South Andaman has already
prepared a Containment Plan for the areas from which confirmed cases were
detected and a massive drive is going on to screen all residents of these areas
on a daily basis to identify the suspect contacts to prevent community
transmission of virus. Moreover, to contain the virus locally, it was also
decided that no person will be allowed to visit North & Middle Andaman
District and Car Nicobar District from South Andaman district without having a
Negative tested report for COVID-19 from the RMRC-ICMR Laboratory. The movement
will be allowed only for emergency services. All residents of the Islands, have
therefore, been requested to extent all help and cooperation to the
Administration to effectively contain the spread of COVID-19 in the Islands.