International arrivals: BBMP allows admission at six private hospitals at patient's cost

At least seven international passengers from at-risk countries who arrived in the city from December 1 have tested Covid positive, according to Bengaluru Rural district health officer. They are currently being treated in various hospitals in the city.

The BBMP has identified six private hospitals for international passengers to be treated at their own cost: Apollo, Fortis, Manipal, Suguna, Sakra and Rainbow.

While Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital said it had ten patients, the youngest being 9-year-old, a 60-year-old was being treated at Suguna Hospital and a 32-year-old woman at Manipal Hospital. Their samples had been sent for genomic sequencing, said Bowring authorities.

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Bengaluru Rural District Health Officer Dr A Thippeswamy told DH, “We have tested 6,300 international passengers from at-risk countries from December 1. At least seven of them tested Covid positive, the youngest a nine-year-old girl.”

Bowring Hospital authorities said all passengers housed there were asymptomatic and clinically stable. Manipal Hospital said it does not want to reveal any details on the number of passengers it was housing or their clinical status.

A source from Suguna Hospital said that a 60-year-old man from Germany had been admitted for quarantine at the hospital as there was some confusion in his RT-PCR report at the airport. When tested outside and at Bowring Hospital, he was negative. He arrived from Germany on December 8.

The BBMP official quoted above said, “We have flagged this problem of false positives to the airport authorities. They are using the CBNAAT test (typically used for TB testing) which is a kind of rapid RT-PCR. Though the test results are available in 45 minutes, the accuracy of the test is only 60%. The conventional RT-PCR’s accuracy is 70% to 80%. The problem with conventional testing is by the time the results are out in six hours there will be massive crowds at the airport.”

“A 34-year-old from South Africa was negative at the airport. The next day he got himself tested outside and was positive, following which he was admitted to Bowring. We have informed the state surveillance unit and are trying to do random sampling,” he said. The Bangalore International Airport has 58 machines for rapid RT-PCR tests.