Foreign Couple Who Fled to Avoid COVID-19 Test Traced and Isolated

They had told the hospital that they were American citizens who had been living in London for three years.

Image used for representational purposes.

(Photo: PTI)

Two foreigners who ran away from the Alappuzha Medical College in Kerala after doctors suggested that they take the COVID-19 test have been located. They were found at Kochi's Nedumbassery airport while trying to fly back to Doha around 11.30 pm on Friday, 13 March.

They were brought back to the district hospital in Ernakulam where their samples were taken for tests and they are now in isolation at Kalamassery Medical College Hospital.

The couple had reached Nedumbassery on 9 March and had consulted a doctor at Alappuzha Medical College as one of them was running a fever. After the doctor asked them to take a test for COVID-19, they tried to escape on Friday night.

They have been identified as American citizens living in London for the last three years and had reached India via Doha.

Alappuzha Collector had earlier told TNM that the duo had run away from the hospital without giving their samples, perhaps fearing quarantine and isolation.

Meanwhile, another foreigner couple were detained near Haripad in Alappuzha on suspicion that it was the same couple that had escaped from Alappuzha Medical College but this information was found to be false and they were later let off.

(Published in an arrangement with The News Minute)