Guwahati/Agartala/Imphal, May 16 (TIWN) With stepped up inter-state movement, 20 people, including seven BSF jawans, a nurse and an under-treatment patient, tested COVID-19 positive in three northeastern states -- Assam, Tripura and Manipur -- in the past 24-hours, ministers and health officials said on Saturday.

According to Tripura''s health officials, of the 159 Border Security Force (BSF) personnel of two battalions (86th and 138th) and family members who tested positive so far, 62 including five kids and a woman have recovered and been discharged from the hospital.  After a two-day break, 11 people, including seven BSF jawans, were tested COVID-19 positive in Tripura on Saturday taking the state''s total positive cases to 167. Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb in a tweet said : "As many as 625 samples have been tested for COVID-19. Among them 11 persons were found positive. (Of the 11) seven people are from 86th Battalion of BSF and four civilians."  According to Deb, who also holds the Health and Home Departments, of the four civilians, two are truck drivers of other states and two others, including a girl, recently returned to the state from Guwahati.  In Tripura, as many as 167 COVID-19 positive cases have been reported so far. In Assam, five people, including an under-treatment patient were tested COVID-19 positive in Guwahati in the past 24-hours. A barber and a cart-puller, who tested positive on Saturday, are contacts of a migrant worker who worked in a potato godown in Guwahati and had tested positive on Monday.  Three persons had tested COVID-19 positive on Friday night. Of the three, one person was under treatment at the Guwahati Medical College and Hospital. Out of the 91 positive cases found so far in Assam, currently 46 are active cases and undergoing treatment and 41 have been discharged from hospitals after they recovered from the disease.  In Assam, two people, including a 16-year-old girl died while two positive cases migrated to other states.  In Manipur, three women including a nurse and a youth tested corona positive during the past 24 hours.

A 76-year-old woman and her 48-year-old son tested positive for COVID-19 in Manipur, taking the state''s total number of positive cases to seven with five active cases. 

Manipur Health and Family Welfare Department''s Additional Director Khoirom Sasheekumar Mangang said the woman and her son belonged to a 36-member group, which returned to Manipur from Mumbai on May 8. A nurse, who was under quarantine since her return from Kolkata, and a 22-year-old girl, who recently returned to Manipur from Chennai, also tested positive for COVID-19. 

Manipur was declared COVID-19 free by Chief Minister N. Biren Singh on April 19, after two coronavirus patients recovered.  Meanwhile, a three-member Central team, which arrived in Tripura on Thursday to study the coronavirus infection among the BSF troopers and their kin, is now on a visit to the two BSF battalions (86th and 138th) headquarters in Ambassa, 82 km north of Agartala, and different parts of Dhalai district.  The Central team, led by G.K. Medhi, Professor and Head of the Department of Community Medicine of the Shillong-based North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health & Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS), is studying the source and other aspects of the coronavirus infection among troopers, officials and their family members.