india

Updated: Apr 30, 2020 12:31 IST

One Tamil Nadu-based ambulance driver, who was among the two who drove five stranded Tripura residents, including a couple, from Chennai to the north-eastern state earlier this week, has tested coronavirus disease (Covid-19) positive, state law minister Ratan Lal Nath said on Wednesday.

The couple and three other Tripura residents were stranded in Chennai after the central government imposed nationwide lockdown restrictions from March 25 initially for 21 days and then further extended it for another 19 days till May 3 to contain the spread of Covid-19 outbreak.

On April 27, the five people entered Tripura in an ambulance via Churaibari check-post on the state’s border with neighbouring Assam. They reached Udaipur in Gomati district on the same day late evening.

“There were two ambulance drivers, who took turns to drive over 3,000 kilometres by road from Chennai to Tripura. All seven people, including the drivers, were immediately quarantined after they reached here. We also collected their swab samples and sent them for tests. One of the drivers, who is from Tamil Nadu, has tested Covid-19 positive. The rest six have tested negative,” the minister told the media persons.

“All the seven people were screened before they entered Tripura and none of them had shown any symptoms of Covid-19,” he added.

The minister said that the Covid-19 positive driver is undergoing treatment in Siliguri, north Bengal. “All those, who came in contact with the driver during his stay in Tripura, will have to undergo tests,” the minister said.

The state government, which is all set to begin rapid random community Covid-19 tests, urged people to volunteer for tests if they show any symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 that causes the disease.

Around 6,000 people, who are stranded outside Tripura, have registered with the state authorities in their bid to return home at the earliest, officials said. The state has conducted 4,613 tests to date, they added.