Health officials at Mathilakam where the country’s first COVID-19 case was reported heaved a sigh of relief on Tuesday when the village was finally excluded from the revised list of hotspots.

Mathilakam’s fight against COVID-19 started much before the country initiated its preparedness to control the pandemic.

The first case was reported on January 30, on the very day the World Health Organisation declared the pandemic as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. A medical student from Mathilakam, who returned home from Wuhan in China, was tested positive.

Though she later recovered from the disease, Mathilakam reported another positive case in the second phase. A youth from Koolimuttam, Mathilakam, who returned from Qatar on March 15, was tested positive for the disease.

After that, it was a restless period for health officials, including health inspectors and nurses, under the Mathilakam Block Panchayat. Hundreds of people, primary and secondary contacts of patients, were put under observation.

There are seven primary health centres and one community health centre under the block panchayat. Health workers worked day and night, risking their lives for the care of people under observation.

They faced even social stigma as the pandemic spread its grip across the world. Health workers from other places, who were staying on rented houses, were the most affected.

Public Health Nurse Supervisor at Perinjanam Community Health Centre P.S. Mable, who hails from Kollam, was staying in a hostel at Irinjalakuda. When she became a member of COVID-19 health team, she faced stigma at her hostel. Later, she was provided accommodation in the hospital itself, recalled the Superintendent of the Community Health Centre Dr. Sanu M. Parameswaran. The team had nurses and other workers who even had small babies and elderly parents at home. But all of them worked as a unit with commitment.

Now, when the Mathilakam Panchayat is out of the hotspot list, the entire village is acknowledging the sincere work and commitment of the health team with gratitude.