Another 13 coronavirus cases have been recorded at the NT’s Howard Springs quarantine facility, with all those infected having arrived on flights from India.

April 23, 2021

The Northern Territory has recorded another 13 COVID-19 cases in quarantine, adding to the 20 already recorded in the past week.

Health officials have warned there may be more infected returned overseas travellers among the passengers on recent flights from India.

A baby girl, three-year-old boy, and woman, 19, who arrived on the repatriation flight from Chennai on April 15 tested positive for the virus, NT Health said on Friday.

Two men, aged 38 and 51, on the same flight have also been diagnosed with coronavirus.

An 11-year-old boy, three women aged 32 to 62, and four men aged 33 to 52 have also tested positive after arriving in Darwin from New Delhi on Saturday.

All are under the care of the AUSMAT team at the Howard Springs quarantine facility, where they have mild symptoms or are asymptomatic.

It follows four new cases, which were recorded on Thursday. All were passengers on the Chennai flight.

A further eight passengers on the Chennai flight and 11 from the New Delhi flight tested positive in the past six days.

A man, aged 35, who arrived from Johannesburg on April 11 also tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday.

“Any new case is concerning,” Health Minister Natasha Fyles said.

“There is a number of close contacts of those cases that we’re also watching closely, so I expect there will be more cases over the coming days.”

There are now 38 active COVID cases in the NT.

One patient is being cared for at the Royal Darwin Hospital. The remainder are at the Howard Springs facility, a former mining camp renamed the Centre for National Resilience.

It comes as repatriation flights from India are cut by 30 per cent along with the number of direct flights allowed to land in Australia.

“The Centre for National Resilience will defer the flights booked in for May to June,” Ms Fyles said.

“Those individuals returning from India and other high-risk countries identified by the Commonwealth will need to undergo two weeks’ quarantine as well as a test as they board the plane and depart for Australia.”

Repatriation flights started arriving in the NT on October 23. Since then 6668 international travellers have quarantined at the facility.

The total number of positive cases diagnosed in the NT is 150, with 109 reported from international repatriation.

All have been related to international or interstate travel, with no cases of community transmission.