Nagaland reports 3 COVID-19 positive cases

State has not counted patient who tested positive in Assam after being transferred by Dimapur hospital

Nagaland on Monday reported its first cases of COVID-19 although a person in the State’s commercial hub Dimapur had tested positive after being referred to a hospital in Assam more than a month ago.

Menukhol John, Nagaland’s Principal Secretary Health, said three people – two men and a woman – who returned from Chennai in Tamil Nadu last week tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

“Two of them are showing mild symptoms and one is asymptomatic,” he said, adding that their samples were tested at the BSL-2 in State capital Kohima.

Interactive map of confirmed coronavirus cases in India

Officially, Nagaland is the last of the northeastern States after Sikkim to report COVID-19 positive cases. But a 33-year-old trader based in Dimapur had tested positive in Gauhati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) on April 12.

The man had been admitted to a private hospital in Dimapur for treatment but the hospital referred him to the GMCH as the State did not have testing facilities at that point of time. He tested positive hours after he was shifted in an ambulance.

Nagaland’s Department of Health and Family Welfare did not include him in the State’s list of positive cases. The department’s update said he had been “added to the tally of Assam State as sampling was done in Assam”.

Assam’s latest tally of 427 positive cases, however, does not include the Dimapur man. The list does mention three persons “migrated to other States”, but the man from Nagaland is not among them.