New testing centre soon

 “I had gone for a site inspection today and likely by next week, we will be inaugurating the testing centre at Pasteur Insitute, Shillong,” Health Minister AL Hek told reporters on Monday.

He informed that over 600 tests are presently being conducted at the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health & Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS) and 250 at Tura.

Asked, the minister however said, “I will not be able to tell you the testing capacity of the new centre but we are planning to test 40-50 samples in eight hours.”

Hek further informed that the state now is having only 17 active cases after 26 patients have recovered recently.

He said a total of 14,147 samples have been sent for testing out of which 13,303 were negative while test results of 800 are awaited.

There has been no frest case reported. The last COVID-19 case was detected on June 10.

Asked, the minister informed that newborn baby of a positive patient at NEIGRIHMS is yet to be tested for COVID-19.

On the 72-year-old patient, Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong said that the government is on the job to ensure all high risk and low risk contacts are taken care of. “I am happy to inform you that the health department has taken necessary action and no positive cases was found from any of the high risk and low risk contact of the patient,” he said.

Sources said that officials during a review meeting chaired by the Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma today have informed that after the first retest was conducted, the elderly patient has been found negative and now they are waiting for the second test.

A total of 15,454 stranded people have returned to Meghalaya from different parts of the country. Tynsong said that government will continue to welcome stranded citizens with maximum facilities to ensure there is no spread of COVID-19 in the state.

By Our Reporter