VIJAYAWADA: Prakasam health officials are at their wits' end as 62 out of the 826 international travellers who arrived in the district since November 1, remain untraced.
While some of the 62 travellers could not be located at the addresses provided by them or have their phones switched off, others reportedly informed the authorities that they are yet to reach Prakasam. As such, the district medical and health office has lodged a complaint with the district police seeking help in the tracing of the 'missing' foreign returnees.
Since November 1, as many as 826 people returned to Prakasam district from 20 countries including South Africa, US, New Zealand, Australia and China. A few international travellers returned from the countries that have reported a large number of COVID-19 Omicron cases.
"With the help of local health volunteers and ASHA workers, our staff have successfully traced 764 of the 826 international travellers who arrived in the district since November 1. All the traced flyers have tested negative for COVID-19 in the confirmatory tests. Testing of the remaining 62 will be done after their tracing," Dr P Ratnavali, DMHO-Prakasam district told The New Indian Express.
She added she had lodged a complaint with the district SP seeking help in the tracing the whereabouts of 42 international travellers. Also, district collector Praveen Kumar has directed the DMHO to contact all foreigners who arrived in the district in the last two weeks and inquire about their health condition and vaccination status.
Meanwhile, the collector, in a review meeting on Friday, discussed with the officials the preventive measures that need to be take in the wake of the Omnicron variant. Till Thursday, the district has completed single dose vaccination of 26,69,726 (99.50 per cent of the target population) people and double dose vaccination of 79 per cent of the target population.