Coronavirus threat in Kashmir
Fayaz Bukhari
Srinagar, Feb 27: Although Kashmir has remained unaffected from Coronavirus due to vigil maintained by the authorities on people with China travel history but there is imminent danger now as people arriving home from Iran go unchecked.
Over the last few weeks, several people including students and pilgrims have arrived from Iran especially from worst hit province of Qum. Iran is the worst hit after China where 22 people have died so far, the highest in any country outside China. The global Coronavirus death toll has gone upto 2800 with around 2000 deaths reported from Wuhan, the epicentre of the COVID-19.
The Government of India yesterday issued travel advisory asking people to avoid non-essential travel to Iran, North Korea and Italy where Coronavirus deaths have been reported recently. People with travel history of Iran, North Korea and Italy since February 10 have been asked for 14 days quarantine.
In Kashmir, thousands of students and pilgrims visit Iran every year and several of them arrived home during last few weeks. However, none of them have been quarantined so far and it poses risk of coronavirus in Kashmir.
And around 300 students, mostly studying medicine, in Iran are waiting for evacuation from the country. They were scheduled to come home for annual vacations but airlines have cancelled flights to Tehran after Coronavirus deaths were reported from Iran.
The Nodal Officer for J&K UT to deal with the Coronavirus, Dr Shafqat Khan, when asked about the people from Iran arriving Kashmir unchecked told Excelsior that they received the advisory from GoI yesterday afternoon and circulated it immediately. “We have adopted same SOPs like those with China travel history. The teams at airports have been alerted about those with Iran, North Korea and Italy travel history”, he said.
On those who have already arrived in Kashmir from Iran, Khan said that Health Department will depute teams to identify those who arrived from Iran recently. “We have identified one of the students who arrived recently. We also appeal them to self-report for their and others safety. We will home quarantine them and send medical teams for daily health check-ups”, he added.
It may be mentioned here that around 120 people mostly students arrived in J&K from China recently with 34 evacuated from Wuhan. They were quarantined and samples of 20 of them with fever and respiratory ailments were taken but all of them tested negative for the COVID-19.
In the meantime, Joint Secretary Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, M K Bhandari today cautioned the Health department not to lower their guard against the Coronavirus. He was speaking at a meeting to take stock of the preparedness of J&K against the virus.
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