KDMC unable to trace taxi driver who drove Covid-19 positive Dombivli resident

Six days after a 32-year-old Dombvli resident with international travel history from South Africa tested Covid-19 positive upon arrival in Mumbai via Delhi on November 24, the Kalyan Dombvli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) is unable to track the taxi driver, who drove the man from Mumbai airport to Dombvli.

“I tried contacting him but he is not answering calls. Now, I have sent the details to the state health department. As the person doesn’t reside in KDMC jurisdiction, the department might ask Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to trace the driver,” said Pratibha Panpatil, Chief Medical Officer of KDMC.

The patient tested negative in an RT-PCR test conducted 72 hours prior to his connecting flights from Cape Town to Mumbai. “He had got an RT-CPR test in Cape Town before travelling to Mumbai via Delhi. But the report was negative for SARS-CoV-2. Upon landing in Delhi airport, when another RT-PCR test was conducted, he was found positive. There is a possibility that his previous report was false negative,” said Panpatil.

Despite running a test on him at Delhi airport, the authorities allowed him to fly to Mumbai without waiting for the report. When he landed in Mumbai, he received his digital test report in his email which confirmed that he was carrying the pathogen of Covid-19. But while getting out of the airport, he showed his earlier negative test report to screening officers. Then he took a private cab and travelled for 50 km to his home in Dombvli, exposing the taxi driver and nearby passersby.

In a similar incident last year, the first three identified Covid-19 infected patients in Maharashtra infected a taxi driver, who drove them from Mumbai to Pune on March 1, 2020, upon their arrival from Dubai.

KDMC has tested eight of the Dombvli resident’s close contacts including his parents. Their reports were negative. “We have sent his samples for genome sequencing to Kasturba hospital. We are hoping to get the report within a week,” said Panpatil.

Though health officials are yet to ascertain if he is infected with the Omicron variant of Covid-19, doctors urged Mumbai airport to be more cautious. They also demanded more stringent restrictions on international and domestic travellers.

“Firstly, the infected patient should have taken an ambulance to reach home if he wanted to be home quarantined. Secondly, Mumbai airport needs to be more vigilant and learn from past experiences…,” said Dr Avinash Bhondwe, former president of Indian Medical Association (IMA), Maharashtra.

As per the new directive, Mumbai airport will have to run RT-PCR on international passengers coming from six ‘countries of concern’ of South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini (Swaziland), Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Until their reports come negative, they will have to wait at the airport.

Once a passenger is identified as Covid-19 positive, he/she will be directly institutional quarantined at the Byculla jumbo centre. “We will keep buses at the airport to take the positive patients directly to the centre. Also, their samples will be sent for genome sequencing to Kasturba Gandhi Hospital,” said Dr Ramesh Bharmal, director of major civic-run hospitals.