Since the detection of the first case in Manipur on March 24, when a 23-year-old student who had returned from the UK was found positive, the number of Covid-19 cases in the seven states in the northeast has now risen to 50.
Assam with 35 cases has the most number of patients of the coronavirus disease. The state had its first case on March 31.
Apart from a Guwahati businessman and a person from Nagaland’s Dimapur, who got tested in Assam and is under treatment in Guwahati, all other cases in Assam have links with the Tablighi Jamaat gathering at Nizamuddin Markaz in Delhi last month.
A 65-year-old patient died at the Silchar Medical College Hospital last week, making him Assam as well as the region’s first fatality. Till Friday, nine patients who have recovered from the disease have been discharged from three different hospitals while 25 others are under treatment.
Manipur’s first patient has recovered and been discharged from hospital. The only other patient in the state who had attended the Nizamuddin Markaz last month is still undergoing treatment in Imphal.
Mizoram was the second state in the region to record a Covid-19 case with a 50-year-old pastor who had returned from the Netherlands last month testing positive. No other case has surfaced in the state this month.
In Tripura, the first positive case was a Nizamuddin Markaz attendee followed by a 45-year-old woman who had visited Guwahati. She has since recovered while the first patient is still in the hospital.
Arunachal Pradesh has recorded just one case till date and the patient also has links with the Nizamuddin Markaz. Results of his third and fourth tests have come negative and he was discharged from the hospital on Friday evening.
A businessman from Dimapur was recorded as Nagaland’s first positive case this Sunday. But since he was tested in Guwahati and is undergoing treatment here, he has been included in Assam’s tally by the Union ministry of health and family welfare. The state has now gone from one to zero cases.
Meghalaya was the last state in the region to join the list with a 69-year-old Shillong doctor testing positive on Monday.
He died on Wednesday but eight other members of his family, including his helpers, have been detected positive since. The state has nine Covid-19 cases, the second-highest in the northeast.
