The Jorhat district administration has taken urgent steps to isolate the crew and passengers of luxury cruise ship MV Mahabahu which has docked at Neematighat, off the Brahmaputra here on Friday night and also isolated five employees of the resort where the US tourist had spent a night before leaving Jorhat on the cruise ship.

The boat has been asked not to leave Jorhat until further orders from Dispur. During the stay, the tourists will not be allowed to disembark.

The action comes in the wake of an American tourist testing positive for coronavirus in Bhutan on Friday after he halted here overnight on February 22 and travelled through Jorhat to Guwahati on the Mahabahu on February 23.

The tourist, along with a female companion, had put up in Thengal Manor resort on the outskirts of this town on February 22. They boarded the MV Mahabahu on February 23 morning. Jorhat deputy commissioner Roshni A. Korati told the media that all 56 persons (22 foreign tourists and 34 crew members) on board have been kept isolated on the ship.

She said that a medical team from JMCH comprising eight microbiologists, one epidemiologist, one doctor from Dibrugarh and paramedical staff were taken on a boat to the ship which has been anchored at a sandbar in the Brahmaputra near Neematighat.

Korati said that the team after carrying out thermoscanning and other necessary tests have found no sign of coronavirus infection.

However, the deputy commissioner said that the team took a throat swab of a crew member after he volunteered the information that he had suffered from slight fever.

The sample will be sent to ICMR Regional Centre at Lahowal in Dibrugarh district for testing.

An elderly foreign tourist suffering from heart ailment has been shifted to the JMCH isolation ward along with her daughter-in-law and a paramedic of the ship for better treatment.

Majuli deputy commissioner, Bikram Korii said the US tourist had got off at Majuli and watched a private bhaona function for two hours.

Korati said efforts were on to find the taxi drivers who had brought the affected tourist to Thengal Manor from the airport and dropped him at Neematighat the next day.

The government is tracking those who had travelled with him on the ship back to Guwahati and those who had come by the same aircraft.