Rajahmundry: Amid rising concerns regarding the new strain, a 47-year-old woman from Andhra Pradesh’s Rajahmundry, who tested COVID-19 positive upon arrival from United Kingdom (UK) on Monday, gave a slip to the authorities in Delhi.
The 47-year-old Anglo-Indian woman Mary Winfred Ann Parrie, a private school teacher at Rajahmundry, landed in New Delhi on Monday night and tested positive for COVID-19 at the health centre in the Delhi airport. The airport authorities handed her over to the Safdarjung hospital on Tuesday for treatment.
Mary was asymptomatic, so the hospital authorities asked her to be in quarantine for seven days. After getting her out-patient card slip done, she quietly left the place without informing the authorities and after that, the authorities could not find out her whereabouts.
On Wednesday evening, East Godavari district authorities received a communication from Additional District Magistrate of Delhi (North-East) Shubhankar Ghosh stating that Mary, along with her 22-year-old son Riyan might be travelling to her home town Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh Express train.
“Since she is corona positive, there is apprehension of transmission of the infection to other persons from her. As per the protocol, she has to be isolated in institutional quarantine,” Ghosh said in the letter, requesting the East Godavari district authorities to get her admitted to any institutional quarantine facilities.
According to an official bulletin from state health department, the state health authorities, local police authorities and railway police went on high alert to locate Mary as soon as the train arrived. “The authorities made her and her son sport the PPE kits and drove them straight to the Rajahmundry government hospital,” the bulletin said.
Both Mary and her son were subject to COVID-19 tests again. “Mary was found positive and Riyan negative in the Rapid Antigen Test. The hospital authorities have also conducted RT-PCR and VLM (Viral Lysis Medium) tests on both of them and the results are awaited,” the health department said.
Mary, a resident of Ramakrishna Nagar in Rajahmundry, has been working as a teacher in a local school. She, along with her husband and daughter had gone to London a few months ago after lifting of travel restrictions. She returned to India to see her son.