Guwahati:
A COVID-19 patient was discharged from the Silchar Medical College and Hospital in Assam after he was declared cured, Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Friday.
The state has so far reported 86 cases and of them, 42 are active. While one person has migrated out of the state, two persons died.
“Happy to share that one more #COVID19 patient, after testing negative successively, has been discharged from SMCH today taking the total recovered patients to 41,” the minister tweeted.
The Gauhati Medical College and Hospital, which stopped admitting patients after a post-graduate medical student tested positive last week, will reopen on Saturday.
Sarma said he visited the hospital and discussed with the authorities about its reopening.
Total 2,200 samples were collected from doctors, nurses, staff and people in the surrounding areas and all of them have tested negative, except two, he said.
“In view of this, we’re resuming operations”, Sarma said.
Kamrup (Metro) district administration announced that restrictions around the hospital have also been relaxed.
The district administration, however, declared a branch of the Allahabad Bank in Guwahati’s Machkhowa area a containment zone as some of the 15 persons, who tested positive on Wednesday, had visited it.
Two trains — one from New Delhi and another from Chennai — brought back more than 800 people to Assam on Friday.
The passengers deboarded at Bongaigaon, Kokrajhar, Guwahati, Lumding, Maraini, Dibrugarh and Badarpur and after preliminary screening were taken to quarantine centres by the authorities of the respective districts.
The Assam government has made institutional quarantine mandatory for all train passengers, except pregnant women, people above the age of 75, children below the age of 10, disabled persons and those who have come to attend funerals and rituals associated with it.
