Bajura, June 25

COVID-19 infected persons are being sent home well before their recovery in Bajura.

According to District Public Health Office, persons who don’t show any symptoms for 14 days after being infected are being sent home.

In Budhiganga Municipality, 17 persons staying in Dhuralsain-based quarantine in Ward 1 and one in Basanta Primary School-based quarantine in Ward 2 were sent home recently. With them, 11 persons from Basanta school-based quarantine, who had their RDT report positive and PCR report pending, were also sent home by health workers.

“As there was no sign of their PRC reports coming out anytime soon, we sent those who had spent 14 days in quarantine and didn’t show any symptoms home, on the condition that they would stay in isolation at home too,” said ANM Diya Singh, who is assigned for treatment at Dhuralsain-based quarantine shelter.

Further, Singh argued that the decision to send asymptomatic cases home was in keeping with the government guideline.

In Badimalika Municipality, 32 COVID-19 infected persons are moving about freely in their village now.

They had tested positive in the RDT and were sent home after 14-day quarantine before their PCR test reports were out. Infection was confirmed in them as their PCR reports came out one day after they were sent home.

According to locals, the COVID-19 infected persons who came home after spending two weeks in quarantine had promised to stay in home quarantine, but are moving about freely in the village, without bothering to make good on their promise.

As per data, COVID-19 infected persons in the district has reached 102 as of this evening, including 40, 35 and 26 cases in Badimalika, Tribeni and Budhiganga municipalities respectively.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on June 26, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.