Over 800 tourists from the UK have entered Rajasthan in the past one week, and their tracking and tracing remains a huge challenge for both the health officials as well as the police, who have pitched in to help track them.
Many of the visitors' addresses and phone numbers furnished in their contact details are wrong. Official orders may be put in to ascertain that those hiding their contact details shall be penalised, said health officials.
"Even the mobile numbers furnished in the list provided by the central government comprise nine digits due to which it has become difficult for us to trace them. The other numbers are of their UK address which when contacted failed to give their addresses in India," said Narottam Sharma, CMHO, Jaipur.
Sharma confirmed to that out of 333 people who came to Jaipur from the UK, 17 were untraceable till Monday. However, with the help of police, four people were traced on Tuesday morning.
"We are confident of finding the remaining people by evening as the police team is on its toes to collect detailed inflation in the matter."
Other senior officials have remained tight-lipped over the entire episode and refuse to furnish details when asked as to how many people have been traced across Rajasthan.
Earlier, health officials had confirmed that a big chunk of British visitors apart from the 333 to Jaipur, there were 73 who reached Jodhpur, 70 to Ajmer, 48 to Alwar, 43 to Udaipur, 39 to Kota, 24 to Jhunjhunu, 38 to Ganganagar, 35 to Rajsamand and many more, said health officials.
Rajasthan has been a victim of tourists spreading the virus. The first COVID-19 case in Rajasthan was an Italian tourist, who had come on a tour to India when his country was in the throes of the pandemic. This first case was reported on March 2, when this 69-year-old Italian tourist who was part of a group of 23 tourists tested positive for Covid-19.
In 10 months, the COVID-19 numbers have reached 3,06,158 in the state. Till Monday, the active cases were 10,742 while the toll stood at 2,677.
The medical department has put all district officials on alert mode and hunt is on to trace all UK visitors in different parts of the state.