October Actor Banita Sandhu Contracts COVID -19 While Shooting In Kolkata

Adithya Varma actor Banita Sandhu recently tested positive for COVID-19. The actor was shooting for her latest film Kavita & Teresa in Kolkata and was infected by the virus while travelling from the UK. She was reportedly travelling alongside someone who was infected with the new Coronavirus strain.

The actor was immediately taken to a separate unit for UK returnees at the Beliaghata Infectious Diseases Hospital in Kolkata. However, she refused to climb down from the ambulance to go there. She reportedly didn't want to go to the government hospital because of its "lack of 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," said an official. The British High Commission was updated on this as it was against the rules to let her leave. The official was forced to call the police who then reportedly surrounded the ambulance to prevent the actor from leaving.

Banita Sandhu was repeatedly told by the hospital's doctors to come with them, but she stood her ground. Finally, she was admitted to a private hospital and placed in an isolated cabin. This happened after the health department granted permission for the same.

Now officials are yet to determine whether she is infected with the mutant COVID-19 strain or not. Her samples have now been sent to Kalyani’s National Institute of Biomedical Genomics to ascertain this fact.

Many actors around the world have contracted the novel coronavirus. Among Bollywood celebrities, the list includes Varun Dhawan, Kriti Sanon, several members of the Bachchan family, Arjun Kapoor and Malaika Arora and so on. Many actors from the South Indian film industry and Hollywood have contracted the virus too.

The UK-based actor was last seen in the Tamil film Adithya Varma in 2019. She has also acted with Bollywood actor Varun Dhawan in the film October which was released in 2018.

Image credit: Film Companion

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