25 COVID-19 active cases in Assam, NE tally climbs to 29

With five more fresh coronavirus cases testing positive from the Northeast region on Saturday, the total number of cases in these states went up to 29, including 25 in Assam, ministers and officials said.

Of the 29 positive cases, 26 took part in the Tablighi Jamaat congregation at Nizamuddin Markaz in Delhi, while a Manipuri girl and a Mizoram man had tested positive last month after they returned from the UK and the Netherlands, respectively.

Another 52-years-old Assam trader of Kamrup (Metro) district also infected with the nCoV as his swab samples tested positive late Friday night.

Besides the 29 positive cases in the northeastern region, four persons from Assam and two people from Tripura, who attended the congregation, have tested positive for COVID-19.

In his separate tweets about the fresh positive cases of novel coronavirus, Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that five more people from the state's North Lakhimpur, Golaghat, Kamrup (Metro), Kamrup and Marigaon districts have tested positive for coronavirus on late Friday night and on Saturday, taking the state's tally to 25.

The Health Minister said that four persons from Assam, who attended the religious meet but remained in Delhi, after their swab samples tested positive for nCoV. Quoting central government communications, Sarma had earlier said that over 550 to 600 people from Assam had attended the Tablighi meet."Out of these attendees, swab samples of around 500 have been collected and the test reports are awaited," Sarma said.

"I am very angry and frustrated as despite our repeated appeals, none of the participants reported to the authority. Why are you hiding your cases?" Sarma told a national television channel.

In Agartala, Tripura Health Secretary Debashish Basu said that two people from Tripura, who had participated the Tablighi Jamaat congregation, have tested positive for novel coronavirus and now they are in a quarantine center at Bikaner in Rajasthan.

"Eleven people from Tripura's Boxanagar areas (western Tripura) attended the Tablighi Jamaat event. After attending the meet all the eleven people went to Rajasthan. The officials of Rajasthan government verbally informed us that two of the eleven people have tested positive for novel coronavirus," Basu told the media.

At least 600 people from several northeastern states, mostly from Assam, had either attended or were in vicinity of the Tablighi congregation, forcing all seven states to launch an all-out search to identify and test these persons.

The attendees' family members and the people they came in close contact with are also being examined or sent to quarantine.Tripura Health Secretary also said that that swab samples of 36 people who attended the Tablighi meet or went to the Nizamuddin area, have tested negative.