Rajesh Rai | Phuentsholing

A 27-year-old man, who is working as a project engineer for one of the private companies at Pekarzhing, Phuentsholing, is Samtse’s first Covid-19 positive case. He was detected yesterday.

According to the Samtse taskforce, he went to Samtse on January 15. He had been to his home at Khopitar, Pemaling gewog, Samtse.

The man is one of the secondary contacts of the index case in Phuentsholing: the 37-year-old expatriate woman working at Lucky Restaurant and Bar. She tested positive for the Omicron variant on January 7, which led to closing of Phuentsholing for three days.




He was last tested for Covid-19 on January 8 during the contact tracing and testing at Pasakha.

On January 17, he visited Sipsu flu clinic for a Covid-19 test, because he wanted to return to Phuentsholing.

He tested positive for antigens all three times. Except for nasal congestion, he showed no other symptoms.

He was at Sipsu until his RT-PCR results yesterday. He will be transferred to Phuentsholing Covid-19 hospital. Samples of about 25 primary contacts were also sent to Phuentsholing yesterday, which were all negative.




In total, there were about 28 primary contacts: 25 from Sipsu area and three from Samtse.

He is also fully vaccinated and his last Covid-19 booster dose was on December 27.

About 10 secondary contacts were listed yesterday and they were all advised to home quarantine.