Sikkim registered 13 new COVID-19 positive cases on Friday.
These include five from the GREF camp near Rongli bazaar while two were detected in rapid antigen testing at Rangpo screening camp.
The State’s active case is 135, as per the Health department report.
In his health bulletin, Health director general-cum-secretary Dr Pempa T Bhutia informed that 300 samples were tested using RT-PCR machine on Wednesday and Thursday and eleven tested positive for coronavirus.
Among them, six were male returnees staying in a paid quarantine facility.
They had returned to Sikkim from Siliguri on July 7.
Five patients were reported from the GREF camp, Rongli.
They had arrived at STNM hospital with symptoms on Tuesday and later, test results showed they were infected with COVID-19.
Dr Pempa informed that Health teams have started rapid antigen testing at Rongli and Rhenock, which has reported the maximum cases so far coming from the GREF camp and SSB camp.
Our teams are doing contact tracing and testing the people and every day new contacts would be tested, he informed.
Samples of the families of nine COVID-19 patients from GREF compound have also been collected for RT-PCR testing.
Meanwhile, the frontline workers who were exposed to GREF contacts at Rongli have tested negative for coronavirus. Samples of 30 PHC health workers, 55 Police personnel and 10 sanitization workers had been collected and results came negative, said Dr Pempa.
The Health official appealed people here not to go to Rangpo screening camp for rapid antigen testing.
By going there, people are unnecessarily putting themselves under risk as they could come in contact with returnees who may be infected with the virus, he said.