A British national and an Indian coming from abroad were suspected to be infected with COVID-19 following a rapid antigen test at the Netaji Subhas Chandra International Airport in Kolkata, a senior official of the West Bengal health department said on Monday.
The British woman, aged around 42 years, has been shifted to an isolation ward of the state-run Infectious Diseases & Beleghata General Hospital in Beliaghata in Kolkata, the officer said.
Her sample was sent for genome sequencing at the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics at Kalyani in West Bengal's Nadia district to ascertain whether she is infected with the BF.7 variant of coronavirus.
The other passenger, a man from Bihar's Darbhanga who returned from Bangkok, "has gone back home on his own" from the airport, the officer said.
The woman who had landed at the city airport on Sunday night from Kuala Lumpur was initially kept in isolation at a hotel before she was shifted to the hospital on Monday morning, the official added.
An RT-PCR test was conducted on the British national and the result is awaited.
The state health department would be monitoring the health of the other 30-odd passengers who travelled on the same flight with her.
"The woman was meant to travel to Bodh Gaya. We are waiting for the RTPCR report and will take action accordingly," the official said.
He told PTI that the man reached the city on Saturday and has left for Bihar.
"We have informed the surveillance team of Bihar and they are monitoring the matter," he said.
Meanwhile, three persons tested positive for coronavirus in West Bengal on Monday pushing the tally to 21,18,589 since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, a health department bulletin said.
There was no death due to the disease and the toll remained unchanged at 21,532.
Five patients recovered from the disease during the day taking the number of cured people to 20,97,006.
The state now has 51 active cases, 42 of them are in home isolation and nine are undergoing treatment at hospitals, the bulletin said.
Altogether 3,364 samples have been tested for COVID-19 in the state since Sunday
