British actress
Banita
Sandhu, who is in Kolkata to shoot for a movie, tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday. Banita was admitted to a private hospital after she refused to be treated at a government facility, informed health department sources.
Sandhu, who was shooting for Kavita &
Teresa
, reached the city on December 20. Apparently, she travelled in the same flight with the youth who tested positive for the
mutant coronavirus
strain on his return from the
United Kingdom
.
She was detected with the COVID-19 on Monday afternoon and steps were taken to ascertain whether she has been infected with the new strain, an official said. One of the members from the production team, Bhola Chowdury, said, “Only the portions with Banita is left to be shot. Once she recovers, we will resume our work.”
Meanwhile, an FCDO spokesperson from the British Deputy High Commission said: “Our staff members are offering advice and support to a British woman in quarantine, in Kolkata, and are in contact with the Indian authorities regarding local COVID-19 testing and isolation procedures.”
After Sandhu was taken to the Beliaghata Infectious Diseases Hospital, where a separate unit has been set up to house those who returned from the UK, the 23-year-old actress refused to come out of the ambulance alleging that the hospital lacked proper infrastructure. “We had to inform the state secretariat and the health department as she was unwilling to come out of the ambulance and at one point of time, she wanted to leave. The
British High Commission
was informed, as we could not let her go like this. We had to inform the police too. They (police personnel) came and surrounded the ambulance to keep her from leaving,” the official said.
Sandhu, who co-starred with
Varun Dhawan in the film October, was counselled several times by senior doctors of the hospital but their efforts went in vain. “Eventually, with the permission of the health department, she was admitted to a private hospital,” the official said, adding that Sandhu has been kept in an isolated cabin there.
Before leaving the Beliaghata ID hospital, the actress was made to sign a declaration that she was unwilling to get admitted there as ‘she felt the medical establishment lacked infrastructure’.
Steps have been taken to ascertain whether she has been infected with the mutant coronavirus strain. “We will be sending the test samples for genetic analysis to Kalyani’s National Institute of Biomedical Genomics to check whether the actress is infected with the new strain of the coronavirus or not. Once the result is out, we will take necessary steps,” said another official of the health department.
Kavita & Teresa, by Swiss-Indian filmmaker Kamal Musale, talks about love and compassion inspired by the life of
Mother Teresa.
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