Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 19: Stepping up the COVID-19 screening of Rohingya Muslims living at various slums here, the Health Department today collected a dozen samples for testing, officials said.
The samples were taken randomly during screening of Rohingya Muslims residing at Kargil colony and Beeru plot in Bhatindi, a Red Zone, by a team of doctors deputed to check for the symptoms of Coronavirus among the population, the officials said.
They said over 540 Rohingyas, settled in two plots, were screened since Saturday and all of them were found with no symptoms of COVID-19. Click here to watch video
The screening process will continue to cover all the settlements housing the foreigners.
More than 13,700 foreigners, including Rohingya Muslims and Bangladesh nationals, are settled in Jammu and Samba districts, where their population has increased by over 6,000 between 2008 and 2016, according to government data.
Earlier this month, 10 Rohingya Muslims from the area who had attended Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi were isolated and put under administrative quarantine.
“The samples of all the 10 persons came negative and with the completion of their quarantine period, they were released this morning,” a senior official said.
Last week, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs had asked all states and Union Territories to conduct COVID-19 screenings of Rohingya refugees in their jurisdiction as several might have attended Tablighi Jamaat congregation.
A total of 90 areas in Jammu and Kashmir, including 14 in Jammu region, were declared red zones with complete ban on inward and outward movement of the residents as five persons died of coronavirus infection in the Union Territory — four in Kashmir Valley and one in Udhampur district of Jammu.
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