16 trainee Navy sailors test positive

Ahmedabad: Sixteen trainee sailors of the Indian Navy have tested coronavirus positive at the naval base in Gujarat''s Porbandar in the last four days, an official said on Friday.

As Porbandar does not have a military hospital, all of them have been shifted to such a facility in Jamnagar, state defence spokesperson Puneet Chadha said.

"These are trainee sailors posted at the Porbandar naval base. Initially, eight sailors tested coronavirus positive and were shifted to Jamnagar military hospital," he said.

"After contact tracing, health officials collected some more samples from the base and found another eight sailors to be infected two days back. All of them have been shifted to Jamnagar for treatment," Chadha added.

According to him, the work of sanitising the naval base has been completed by the authorities and some of the staff members were also quarantined as a precautionary measure.

This is the second such instance in the state wherein defence personnel were found to have contracted coronavirus.

In April, four soldier craftsmen undergoing training at the Military Station in Vadodara had tested positive for the infection.