Kathmandu, May 14

A six-year-old girl from Banganga Municipality of Kapilvastu who was admitted to Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital for a surgical procedure has tested positive for coronavirus.

Forty-nine health professionals, including more than a dozen doctors, have been quarantined after the girl tested positive for the disease, according to TUTH’s COVID-19 Management Committee Coordinator Santa Kumar Das. All 49 people, including the girl’s mother and grandfather, who had accompanied her from Kapilvastu to Kathmandu, also underwent laboratory tests for COVID-19 today.

The girl was isolated and administered an antibiotic to treat infection in her neck. Das said the girl’s condition improved after antibiotic treatment and she did not require surgery immediately.

The girl was admitted to the ENT (ear, nose, throat) outpatient clinic of the hospital on Tuesday.

After her preliminary examination and background check, her throat swab was collected and sent for testing, the result of which came out positive today.

Das said doctors and health professionals who had been quarantined would not work for two weeks and would be tested for COVID-19 again after two weeks.

The girl has been admitted to the neurology ward as the ENT ward has been converted into a COVID-19 special unit.

Chief District Officer of Kaplilvastu district Dirgha Narayan Paudel told THT over the phone that quarantine centres had been set up in Banganga Municipality for those who had recently returned from abroad but it was not yet clear how the girl contracted COVID-19. “We are trying to get more information about the girl and her family. We do not know if she had come into contact with anyone returning from abroad,” Paudel added.

COVID-19 infection rate has gone up recently in Kapilvastu as migrant workers have returned from India, sneaking into Nepal illegally though Nepal-India border, which has been sealed till May 31.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, six people tested positive for COVID-19 today, including the six-year-old girl, taking the total COVID-19 positive cases in Nepal to 249. A 32-year-old man from Kathmandu, a 49-year-old man from Nawalparasi-East district, a seven-year-old boy from Dahachowk, Kathmandu, a 17-year-old girl from Janakpur, Dhanusha, and a 30-year-old woman from Dhading also tested positive for the virus.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on May 15, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.