Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday said preventing community transmission had been the highlight of the fight against COVID-19 in the State.
Restricting the positive cases to quarantine centres and keeping a few cases of secondary transmissions from public contact had been a success story for the State, he claimed.
Assam has till date recorded 35 COVID-19 positive cases with one of them, a 65-year-old man, having died a fortnight ago. All but one of these cases have been linked to the Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi’s Nizamuddin in March.
While 25 of more than 600 Tablighi Jamaat returnees tested positive, nine caught the virus from them either at home or at small gatherings in specific places. The government is yet to find the source of one of the positive case, who recovered later.
“We have nothing to fear if more cases come from quarantine centres, but we will have to assess from a different perspective if a case is reported from a village or a town tomorrow,” Mr Sarma said.
He was hopeful that there would not be any fresh case of primary transmission in the State after more than 40 days. Nineteen of the 35 positive cases in Assam have been discharged after their recovery.
Four of Assam’s neighbours — Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Tripura — are coronavirus-free with all patients having been recovered. Sikkim has no COVID-19 case.
Cash assistance
Mr. Sarma, who is also the Finance Minster, said about 3 lakh people stranded outside Assam would get ₹2,000 each by April 30. About 2 lakh of them had already received the amount.
Similarly, 49 people from Assam stranded abroad had been provided financial support of $1,000 each while 839 critically ill patients stuck elsewhere in the country had been given ₹25,000 each.
Meanwhile, Transport Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary said 179 rakes of the Food Corporation of India had been brought to Assam for the entire northeast. The bulk of the 4,70,000 tonnes of rice and 21,000 tonnes of wheat brought in was for Assam.
