Shillong, May 9: The Meghalaya government has ruled out the possibility of re-testing the ten COVID-19 patients who had been declared recovered in the State.

“There is no question of going for a re-test on these ten patients since all of them are fine. Even the protocols do not require for doing a re-test,” Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said.

He added: “The new test done on the ten patients who are recovered were accurate.”

Asked if the government is planning to conduct random testing in view of the increase in the capacity of testing facilities in the State, Sangma said, “It may not be possible for us to do that. But this does not mean we will not take immediate steps whenever required. We will do the test as per the needs and requirement.”

Sangma however said that at the moment the government is concentrating at the high risk primary contacts.

The Chief Minister also informed that the latest person who tested positive for COVID-19 was one among the 181 high risk primary contacts which the health department had identified.

“We had done a re-test on these 181 high risk primary contacts even though the protocols don’t require us to do it. Now, we felt it was the right decision to ensure that we are much safer,” he informed.

“We had done the test on April 16 and it came out negative,” Sangma said.

However, he said that the patient’s husband and her two children who are the primary contacts tested negative.

Till Saturday, samples sent for test were 2287 out of which, 2178 tested negative and the number of test awaited is 96.

Now Meghalaya has recorded 13 postive cases out of which, 2 active cases, one death case and ten have recovered.

The number of stranded people who returned from states within the Northeast to Meghalaya till Saturday is 2623.
The remaining returnees is likely to reach the state on Sunday.