Lockdown at Bandipora in north Kashmir. (Express photo by Shuaib Masoodi)
An Army man and a doctor were among 21 people who tested positive in Jammu and Kashmir since Saturday night, leading UT health officials to quarantine 75 members of the medical fraternity including two dozen doctors working in government and private hospitals in Jammu and Kathua districts.
UT government spokesperson Rohit Kansal, who is also Principal Secretary, Planning, Development and Monitoring Department, tweeted, “21 new cases of Covid-19 reported in J&K today, 17 from Kashmir and four from Jammu division”. “Total number of positive cases now 245,” he added.
Sources said that the four who tested positive in Jammu division included a serving Army man who had come home on leave in Samba district last month. He was posted in Uttar Pradesh and had a history of travel by train via Delhi.
A woman doctor and a dental assistant who tested positive were posted at a primary health centre in Udhampur district. The former hailed from Jammu and the latter from Tikri, sources said, adding that the dental assistant was reportedly in contact with a 61-year-old woman who recently died of coronavirus. The doctor’s husband, who is also a doctor posted in Kathua, has been quarantined, sources said. She is the fourth doctor in Jammu division to test positive.
The fourth person who tested positive in Jammu on Sunday was a chance detection, as the 46-year-old was already under treatment for chronic liver disease at a private hospital in Sidhra area and had no travel history. Sources said the hospital administration had called a team of UT Health Department to take samples of a cancer patient. When the team came, the hospital superintendent requested them to take samples of another patient who was being treated for liver disease. The former responded, sources said, adding that while the cancer patient tested negative and died later, the other turned out to be positive.
The chance detection of an already admitted patient sounded alarm bells in the private hospital, which put 48 of its staff members including doctors and paramedical employees in quarantine.
More than two dozen members of the medical fraternity including 21 doctors at the government-run SMGS Hospital in Jammu were also quarantined after a 28-year-old woman from Akhnoor tested positive after delivering a baby, sources added.