Indian hockey captain Manpreet, four others test COVID-19 positive

Bengaluru: Indian men's hockey captain Manpreet Singh, Surender Kumar, Jaskaran Singh, Varun Kumar and Krishan Pathak have tested COVID-19 positive after reporting to the national hockey camp in Sports Authority of India's (SAI's) National Centre of Excellence (NCOE) here along with the team.

All five tested negative in the rapid test, SAI said but Manpreet and Surender began to display some COVID-19 symptoms later because of which they along with other athletes who had travelled together were given the Quantitative RT-PCR test on Thursday.

SAI made it mandatory for all athletes, who reported back to the camp to take a rapid COVID-19 test upon arrival.

SAI also said that the test results have still not been handed over to them and it is the state government that has informed them about it. "Test results to the SAI authorities and few test results are still awaited," it said.

All athletes, including Manpreet, who reported to camp were undergoing quarantine as per the Health Ministry Guidelines and as a precautionary measure were kept in isolation.

The quarantined athletes did not interact with other athletes who were already present at the camp. The SOP of the state government and of SAI is being followed strictly across the campus.

"I am self quarantined on the SAI campus and I am very happy with the way SAI authorities have handled the situation," said Manpreet. "I am very happy that they made the testing of athletes mandatory. That proactive step helped in identifying the problem right in time. I am doing fine and hope to recover very soon."