Many ‘unresponsive’ int’l travellers traced

GOING BY AIRPORT AUTHORITIES’ RECORDS, IN THE PAST THREE DAYS MORE THAN 3000 PASSENGERS HAVE LANDED IN THE STATE CAPITAL FROM DIFFERENT COUNTRIES

LUCKNOW : Several of the 200 international travellers, who arrived from abroad and left the Lucknow airport after RT PCR test but did not respond to initial calls from the health department in the past 48 hours, were traced on Friday.

“On December 1, these travellers were allowed to leave the airport after giving samples for Covid test via RT PCR method and were advised to report their health status every day for eight days. But about 200 did not respond to the first set of phone calls, after which we tried tracing them via repeat calls, emails and by sending rapid response teams to their given address,” said Dr Manoj Agrawal, chief medical officer of Lucknow.

Alarmed with the unresponsive patients, the health department started an exercise to trace them and many responded to repeat calls. Several were found at home by rapid response teams. Officials said they hoped to trace the remaining in the next 24 hours.

“Sending a response team is step two in tracing and if we find that the person is still missing and the family isn’t cooperating in disclosing his or her location, we seek help from police. But that is the last resort. If someone does not respond to the first phone call, we don’t mark him untraceable,” said a senior district health official.

Going by airport authorities’ records, in the past three days more than 3000 passengers have landed in the state capital from different countries including Dubai, Sharjah and Jeddah.

“On an average, we are receiving 8 to 11 flights per day from international bubble to bubble. We are not allowing any passenger to leave the airport premises unless the RTPCR test is done and all personal information along with the travel history is submitted,” said Dr VK Chaudhary, airport public health officer (APHO).

Chaudhary said from the airport, the samples were sent to Sarojini Nagar PHC and then passed on to the concerned labs for testing. “We follow up every patient by calling him/her personally on daily basis for the next 14 days, even if the report is negative. The data of the passenger is then shared with the