Agartala: The Tripura government has sounded an alert after the double mutant strain of coronavirus and those of Britain and African variants were found in the state, officials said on Friday.
The state government has decided to hold full-fledged virus tests for passengers entering the state via airways, trains and roadways and quarantine the infected among them, the officials said.
Immediately after the receipt of the test results of outsiders by the state government, Tripura health secretary JK Sinha held a virtual meeting on Thursday with district magistrates, superintendents of police and the chief medical Officers of all the eight districts and asked them to take all precautions and strictly maintain the COVID-19 norms, officials said.
Director of Health, Radha Debbarma and professor of microbiology of Agartala Government Medical College, Tapan Majumder said, 19 samples collected from corona virus infected persons were sent outside Tripura for advanced virological tests. Of them 17 samples were found to be infected with the highly infectious and deadly virus strains of COVID-19.
Of the 17 infectious samples, 11 were found infected with the double mutant variety that devastated Maharashtra, five were of British strain origin and one strain of African origin.
So people should strictly adhere to all COVID-19 norms for safety, Majumder told reporters on Friday.
Siddhartha Shiva Jaiswal, director of state National Health Mission said that in the second wave, people aged between 20 and 40 years are the most affected by coronavirus in Tripura.
Of the 665 people who tested postive for coronavirus till 23 April, a total 50.79 per cent of them were between the ages of 20 and 40 and were infected with the deadly disease, he said.
Jaiswal said that children below 10 years are also being infected by the virus but people in their sixties are relatively protected from corona infection.
A total of 8.39 lakh people of the state have taken the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, which is 24 percent of the state’s population and is much higher than the national average of only six percent.
Meanwhile, at least 166 more people tested positive for COVID-19 in Tripura on Friday pushing the tally in the state to 35169, a health department official said. The death toll remained at 393 as no one succumbed to the infection.
Tripura currently has 1020 active coronavirus cases, while 33555 people have recovered from the disease, the official said.