Srikakulam village declared containment zone

Srikakulam: Umilada village in Santhabommali mandal of Srikakulam district has been declared as containment zone as a precautionary measure with a 51-year-old seaman, who returned from South Africa recently, testing Covid positive.

The seaman was working in Cape Town in South Africa and returned to the village via London and Mumbai on November 23. At that time, he tested Covid negative. On December 4, he fell ill, and the local medical staff collected his samples on December 5. He tested Covid positive in the tests. In view of his travel history, officials suspecting it to be Omicron variant have sent the samples for genome sequencing to CCMB, Hyderabad.

Borubhadra Primary Health Centre (PHC) medical officer Dr P Gopi Krishna said they had conducted Virus Transport Media (VTM) test on the seaman and asked him to stay alone in his house and alerted village volunteer, village secretariat and the local medical staff.

District Medical and Health Officer (DM&HO) Dr Bagadi Jagannadha Rao told The Hans India that in this backdrop they had imposed restrictions, sanitised the village and declared the village as containment zone to prevent any spread of the virus, he added.