Kathmandu, April 2

A 65-year-old woman, who travelled from Doha to Kathmandu on March 17, tested positive for coronavirus today, making her the sixth COVID-19 patient in Nepal.

Spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Population Bikas Devkota confirmed the sixth positive case at the daily press briefing organised at the ministry today.

The woman, who is from Baglung district, is a relative of the 19-year-old girl from the same district who is undergoing treatment at Dhawalagiri Zonal Hospital after testing positive for COVID-19, said hospital physician Pradip Shrestha. He said the woman, who had been in home quarantine, would be admitted to the hospital’s isolation ward tonight. With this case, three people who travelled from Doha to Kathmandu on Qatar Airways’ QR 652 have tested positive for COVID-19. A total of 158 passengers were aboard that plane.

Shrestha said the sixth patient was asymptomatic when her nasal and throat swabs were taken on March 30 for laboratory tests and continues to be asymptomatic. “Although she has no symptoms, we are going to admit her to the isolation ward,” he said. He added that her swabs were tested for COVID-19 as she had travelled from Belgium to Nepal via Doha, on March 17 with the 19-year-old female relative who had tested positive. Shrestha said the 19-year old female patient, who was undergoing treatment at the hospital, was making satisfactory progress and the hospital would test her swab again after a couple of days.

COVID-19 patients are discharged from hospital after they test negative twice during their treatment period.

Health Ministry Spokesperson Bikas Devkota told mediapersons that doctors and health professionals were doing the needful to treat the sixth patient. Till date, 1,184 tests have been carried out in Nepal. The first Nepali person who had contracted the virus in China underwent treatment at Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital in January and has fully recovered.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on April 03, 2020 of The Himalayan Times.