KATHMANDU, JUNE 15

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has urged the government to expand scope of Covid-19 testing fearing the spread of contagion at the community level.

Issuing a press release on Monday, NHRC said that though the infection seems to be decreasing in recent days in some urban areas including Kathmandu valley, the number of serious Covid-19 patients has yet to come down in other parts of the country including Rukum, Rolpa and Dhangadhi.

The commission also said that testing and contact tracing procedures have not been expanded in the villages and rural areas where Covid-19 infected persons are still not willing to test owing to the negative perspective upon the Covid positive persons.

This has caused the spread of the contagion at the community level, NHRC said.

The commission further stated that it has, during its monitoring, found that the government has failed to pay attention to the effective management of Covid-19 vaccination.

Due to the lack of proper management, targeted people for vaccination were denied access to vaccines as well as lack of enforcement of health guidelines in the vaccination centres had led to the possibility of spread of contagion from there.

According to Tikaram Pokhrel, Spokesperson at the NHRC, the commission had written to the Ministry of Health and Population to ensure proper management of the anti-Covid-19 vaccines.