India's first Covid patient tests positive again

Kochi: A student from Kerala's Thrissur enrolled at a medical college in China, who was the first Indian to test positive for Covid-19 in January 2020 after returning to India following the outbreak of the pandemic, has been infected again, a health official said on Tuesday. She is, however, asymptomatic, the official added.

"She has been tested positive and under quarantine at her home. None of the family members have tested positive so far," said Thrissur district medical officer K J Reena. She said re-infection is nothing new, and some of the health workers have been infected twice.

The student was found to have been reinfected after she was retested as she planned to travel to Delhi. Her family said she is showing no visible symptoms and that she has also been administered the first Covid-19 vaccine dose.

The student, who has been unable to return to China as Beijing is yet to allow Indian students back into the country because of the pandemic, spent almost a month in hospital while undergoing treatment for Covid-19 in 2020. Two of her friends, who travelled with her from Wuhan, the epicentre of the pandemic in China, were also later tested positive.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday expressed concern over people crowding at hill stations and markets without wearing masks or observing social distancing norms, as he urged all to guard against complacency to prevent a third wave of the coronavirus spread.

"If we remain cautious and take precautions we will be able to prevent the third wave...there should be no compromise in this," he said, while also stressing that the vaccination drive needs to be continuously ramped up.

The Prime Minister was speaking during an interaction with chief ministers of eight Northeastern states through video conferencing. Modi said the COVID-19 situation was worrisome in some districts of the region and urged the chief ministers to stay alert and act fast to check the further spread of the virus.

A fourth case of Zika virus was reported from Kerala on Tuesday taking the infection count in the state to 23, the health department said.

"A 16-year-old Thiruvananthapuram native girl was found infected with the virus after the sample was tested at the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology here," state HealthMinister Veena George said. The others who tested positive today included a doctor of a private hospital here.