HYDERABAD: Telangana government deployed 10 special teams at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA), Hyderabad, to monitor international passengers coming in from the high-risk nations where the Omicron variant of Covid-19 has been detected. The special teams began the job on Monday itself and tested close to 41 passengers from countries in the UK, Europe and Hong Kong, all of whom tested negative.
“We have decided to test everyone coming from ‘at-risk’ nations irrespective of their vaccine status at Hyderabad airport. They will be given an RT-PCR test, and if positive, they will be sent to Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences (TIMS) Hospital, otherwise, they would be sent for home isolation for next eight days with the next RT-PCR test scheduled after that,” informed Dr. G Srinivasa Rao, Director of Public Health, Telangana.
At TIMS, two floors have been earmarked for passengers from these countries for isolation away from the general patients, he added. “We have also decided to randomly test five per cent of all international passengers to ensure no transmission comes that way,” he said.
Dr. Rao stated that all positive samples would be further sent to genome sequence in the three labs — Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), Centre For Cellular And Molecular Biology and the lab at Gandhi Medical College and Hospital — where, in three days, the results of the genome sequencing would be available.
196 infections of Covid in State, 2 die
Hyderabad: Telangana reported 196 cases of Covid-19 on Tuesday with 38,615 tests conducted. The same day 184 individuals have reported recovery taking active cases to 3591. The state also saw two deaths with toll now at 3992. The highest number of cases came in from GHMC with 78 cases, followed by 20 cases in Medchal and 15 in Rangareddy