Woman dodges Delhi officials, reaches Andhra after testing +ve on arrival from UK

A 47-year old Anglo-Indian woman, who tested positive for Covid-19 after landing in New Delhi from the United Kingdom on Monday, gave a slip to the authorities to reach Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh’s East Godavari district by train, in the wee hours of Thursday.

According to an official bulletin from the Andhra health department, Mary Winfred Ann Parrie, a private school teacher at Rajahmundry, tested Covid-19 positive at the Delhi airport health centre after landing from the UK on Monday night.

The airport authorities handed her over to Safdarjung Hospital on Tuesday for treatment. Since she was asymptomatic, she was asked to be in quarantine for seven days. After getting her out-patient card, she quietly left the place without informing the authorities, who could not find out her whereabouts.

On Wednesday evening, East Godavari district authorities received a communication from the additional district magistrate of Delhi (North-East) Shubhankar Ghosh, stating that Parrie, along with her 22 year old son Riyan, who received her at the airport, might be travelling to her home town Rajahmundry aboard Andhra Pradesh Express train.

“Since she is Corona positive, there is an 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 facility.

The state health authorities sounded a high alert and informed both the railway police and the local police authorities. “As soon as the train arrived in Rajahmundry railway station in the early hours of Thursday, they managed to locate Parrie and her son getting down from a first class compartment. The authorities made the duo wear PPE kits and drove them straight to the Rajahmundry government hospital,” the bulletin said.

In the morning, both Parrie and Riyan were subject to different Covid-19 tests again. “The mother 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.

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Parrie, 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 the lifting of travel restrictions. She returned to India to see her son.

State minister for health, Alla Kali Krishna Srinivas alias Nani, said the Anglo-Indian woman and her son were in the isolation ward of the Rajahmundry hospital, where all precautions were being taken.

“The test samples are also being sent to the National Institute of Virology to find out if she had been infected with the new strain of Coronavirus,” the minister said.

He said two separate isolation wards had been created in the hospital for admission of any fresh Covid-19 cases arriving from Europe and to conduct special tests on them. “We shall not take chances with the woman who came from the UK. There is nothing for the people to panic, as the government is on high alert,” Nani said.

The minister said authorities have been asked to trace the passengers and railway crew who might have come in contact with Parrie and her son during their travel from New Delhi to Rajahmundry.