Dhangadi, April 4

The woman in Kailali who tested positive for coronavirus, had been sent home from quarantine citing lack of symptoms.

The 34-year-old of Dhangadi, Kailali, who also happens to be the first locally transmitted case in the country, is a relative of the youth who had returned home from Dubai via New Delhi and was diagnosed with the virus here. He, also aged 34, is the fourth person to be diagnosed with the virus in the country. He tested positive on March 27.

The authority had then placed his entire family in quarantine at a shelter set up in Dhangadi stadium the next day. From there, the woman was sent home after a couple of days, citing her normal health condition.

“She had returned home after staying in quarantine for two days on March 28 and 29,” said Kailali District Police Office Spokesperson DSP Dakshya Basnet.

According to Seti Provincial Hospital Spokesperson Jagadish Joshi, test reports of other family members are pending.

“We collected swab samples of all 10 family members. We got the woman’s test report but others’ reports are yet to come,” Joshi said.

Similarly, it has been revealed that two other persons who tested positive for the virus now had been with a lot of other people while returning home from India.

One of the two cases, a 21-year-old youth of Pratappur, Lamkichuha Municipality, Kailali, had returned home from Mumbai. He had reached home from Dhangadi on March 25. He was in a crowd of around 990 people who were held up for 28 hours in Gauriphanta by security personnel before they were taken to their respective districts by police.

He reached home at night on March 25.

According to sources, 291 persons of Lamki and Tikapur areas had been sent home in four of the 21 vehicles managed by police to transport the stranded lot home.

However, it is yet to be ascertained which bus the youth had boarded. Police said they were investigating.

The other case, who is in quarantine in Sundarpur-based Agriculture Training Centre in Bedkot of Kanchanpur, had come to Nepal from Uttarakhand of India on March 27, via Brahmadev entry point. Ten other persons of Bedkot had also entered the country with him through the entry point that day. Upon finding that they had entered the country violating the lockdown, police had detained them at the agriculture training centre-based quarantine centre the same night.

“Following his diagnosis, we have sent him to Dhangadi for further check-up,” said Bedkot Municipality Health Section Chief Harisha Pal, adding that his health condition was now stable. “In fact, he didn’t show any symptoms back then, yet we took his sample because he had come from India, where coronavirus cases were reported,” said Pal. Seventeen persons, including the 10 who had come to Nepal with the man who tested positive, are now in quarantine.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on April 05, 2020 of The Himalayan Times.