Srinagar: Health department authorities in Ladakh have been complaining of “inadequate facilities” to handle cases of the new coronavirus, and are asking the government to quarantine hundreds of people from the region currently stranded in Iran in Delhi instead before they’re allowed to return home.
Their complaints come after two cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, were reported last week while the final report of another person, who died on Sunday, is awaited.
“If you get more than a thousand people who have to be quarantined at one time in a small place like ours,” a senior health official said on condition of anonymity, “It will create scare among the people.”
The region, comprising the districts of Leh and Kargil, has a total population of 2.74 lakh. During winter, it remains cutoff from the rest of India thanks to heavy snow, and the only means of communication is the occasional flight operating to Srinagar and Delhi. Ladakh also shares a border with China, where the coronavirus first emerged in December 2019.
Some 1,000-1,200 people from both Leh and Kargil are currently stranded in Iran, after they went there on an annual pilgrimage and were due to return on February 25.
“We want these people to be quarantined at Delhi and their return delayed,” the official told The Wire. “It is not only about ensuring their home quarantine, but also providing facilities to those who might have coronavirus symptoms, and that is the real concern.”
He said they’d raised the issue with the lieutenant governor of Ladakh, and who has in turn taken the matter up with the Union health ministry. Now they wait for a response.
Phuntsog Angchuk, the director of health of Ladakh, said that thus far 130 people from Kargil and around 25 from Leh have returned from Iran. “We had sent samples of 15 of these people with COVID-19-like symptoms for investigation. Reports of nine persons have come back negative, and two tested positive, while the reports of two others are awaited,” Angchuk said.
He added that everyone who has returned from Iran thus far has quarantined at home and that doctors from the health department are regularly monitoring them. He also agreed with the official’s assessment that everyone who returns after this should be quarantined in Delhi instead.
Motup Dorje, the chief medical officer of Leh, said the department has set up a 20-bed isolation ward at the district hospital as well as has taken over a private health institute to accommodate more people with symptoms of COVID-19.
A senior health administrator said the region’s people have been panicking, especially after the two people tested positive. “Let’s admit that the health system of Ladakh is not equipped to handle the present situation,” the administrator said.
An elderly person who had recently returned from Iran died on Sunday, after showing some signs of COVID-19 (respiratory distress) plus a urinary tract infection. “We have sent his samples for test but the report hasn’t come so far,” T. Samphel, medical superintendent of Sonam Norboo Memorial Hospital, Leh, said.
Sajjad Hussain, a social activist from Kargil, said authorities weren’t properly screening people coming back from Iran and other countries, and that they’d thought to screen the returning pilgrims only after a woman who lives in Jammu tested positive.
Further, those pilgrims still in Iran alleged that they had been “dumped” by the Indian government. “We are running short of money and food, and there is no help coming from the government,” Muhammad Imran, a resident of Kargil, told The Wire from Iran.
He said around 1,200 persons still remained in Tehran and Qom, after the government canceled all flights to and from Iran. “Some days ago, authorities from the Indian embassy distributed around 800 gm of rice to each of us. That is the only help we have received so far,” Imran, a businessman, said.
He was part of a 20-member group from Kargil. According to him, more than nearly three-fourths of the people from Ladakh were in their 70s. “They all are depressed and in shock as elderly people are more vulnerable to infection,” Imran said.
A team of experts from India had met these people last week and taken the blood samples of 150 to test for the new coronavirus. “We were told that sampling is a long-drawn process. If they can evacuate Indians from Wuhan in China, which has been worst hit by the coronavirus, why not us?” Imran asked.
Another pilgrim from Kargil said the Indian embassy in Tehran wasn’t being clear in its communication. “Our tickets have been canceled and some of us, who had managed accommodations in hotels on their own, are now being asked to vacate,” he said.
He added that the “situation is very tense. There is a fear of contracting the infection as the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise in Iran. There is fear on the streets and roads.”