The first Covid-19 patient in the Northeast, a 23-year-old girl, has tested negative in her final test conducted at the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences (JNIMS) here on Monday.

She is now completely free of the Covid-19 virus, said health and family welfare minister L Jayantakumar on his Facebook account on Monday.

It is a huge achievement of the medical department in general and the doctors and staff of the JNIMS Hospital in particular, he said.

The final test on the girl was conducted by a team of five doctors, comprising principal investigator of Viral Research and Diagnostic Laboratory (VRDL), JNIMS, Dr R.K. Manojkumar, and four research scientists.

She tested negative three times after getting admitted to the isolation ward of the hospital on March 23. After undergoing treatment at the hospital for the past fortnight, she tested negative again on Saturday.

“She hasn’t had fever or difficulty in breathing or any kind of health problem for the past several days. Her appetite has found to be normal,” the director of JNIMS, Dr T. Bhimo said.

The Covid-19 Management Core Committee of JNIMS Hospital and the state quarantine committee will hold a joint meeting at 11am on Tuesday to decide her discharge.

However, she will have to remain quarantined in an isolated room at the same hospital or her house for the next two weeks.

She needed counselling for the next two weeks as she had faced difficult times suffering from the deadly virus while worrying whether she would die or survive, and she had not met her family members for more than a fortnight now , Bhimo said.

With the news of her recovery spreading in Manipur, people who were earlier sceptical and even accused her family of hiding her travel history, have heaved a sigh of relief and expressed happiness on social media.

It’s a victory of the people of Manipur over coronavirus, said the proprietor of a pharmacy located on BT Road here.