KATHMANDU, JANUARY 8
At least a dozen Nepali Army personnel, who recently returned from the peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, have contracted coronavirus.
A group comprising a couple of hundred Nepali Army personnel had returned home from the mission two days ago on January 6. The Nepali Army has been giving special priority to a rigorous process of checking, segregating and quarantining those who have returned from abroad. Priority was given following the chances of spread of omicron variant of coronavirus, which is said to have already spread at community level in the country.
The Public Relations Directorate of the Nepali Army confirmed that more than a dozen Nepali soldiers, who returned from the mission, had contracted the virus. The directorate, however, did not provide any specific numbers of the infected.
NA Spokesperson Santosh Ballav Poudel told THT that more than a dozen had contracted COVID-19, the Omicron variant being the most likely infection.
"We have taken extra measures to subdue the spread of the virus in the army. There is no serious problem as our system is in place to stem the virus," Poudel said.
Nepali Army said it was implementing a robust system to control the virus inside its organisation.
Those returning from abroad shall go through a meticulous process and quarantine themselves for several days before going back to their families.
"As soon as our men get off from the airplane, we put them in a special quarantine facility. There they undergo PCR test and anyone found positive will be immediately sent to isolation," Poudel said.
He further said that those who did not test positive would still have to live in a 14-day quarantine facility and could only leave the place after testing negative for the virus.
Similarly, those testing positive would also be released only after testing negative.
"No one shall leave our facility until they test negative for the virus as some of them might be required to remain in isolation for several weeks," said Poudel.
At least nine Nepali Army personnel have lost their lives in the past two years to COVID-19.
Similarly, at least 3,200 personnel have tested positive for the virus so far.
Nepali Army peacekeepers deputed in South Sudan are receiving applause from all around for their successful initiatives in averting inter-communal clash between two violent ethnic groups there. There, the Nepali Army personnel are also often required to come into contact with the public, which might have put them at risk of COV- ID-19.
A version of this article appears in the print on January 9, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
