Mizoram has announced that it is free of coronavirus disease (Covid-19), as the north-eastern state’s lone patient has recovered.

The patient, a 50-year-old pastor who had visited the Netherlands, tested Covid-19 positive on March 24. He was the second Covid-19 patient from the region after a 23-year-old girl from Manipur tested positive on her return from the United Kingdom.

“We’ve received a report that all the four samples of the patient, collected within 24 hours, have tested negative. He is likely to be discharged from the hospital by the end of this week,” Mizoram health minister R Lalthangliana told HT over the phone from the state capital, Aizawl.

“Mizoram can be declared free of Covid-19. We don’t have a single patient. However, 1,366 people are lodged in various quarantine facilities in all the 11 districts of the state,” Lalthangliana said.

Mizoram has become the fourth state in the north-east after Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Nagaland that don’t have a single Covid-19 positive case.

Tripura, too, had recently announced that it was free of Covid-19 positive cases. However, the border state has since reported 42 Covid-19 positive cases, including 38 Border Security Force (BSF) personnel.