27-year-old SDM down with Covid-19, first IAS officer to test positive in Bihar

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A Bihar-cadre 2017-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer from Uttar Pradesh has become the first bureaucrat from the state to test positive for coronavirus disease Covid-19.

Posted as a Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) in Bihar’s Nalanda district, the 27-year-old officer tested positive for the disease on May 12. His sample was sent for test to the Rajendra Memorial Research Institute of Medical Sciences (RMRIMS) in Patna on May 11.

Bihar’s principal secretary, health, Sanjay Kumar, confirmed that the officer has tested positive.

The young IAS officer does not have any travel history in the past 14 days, and is believed to have contracted the infection from local contacts. The health department had so far collected samples of 46 people who are believed to have come in contact with the officer.

As per government records, the officer has been put under isolation at the local Ajanta Hotel, which the government had taken over and converted into an institutional isolation centre for asymptomatic Covid-19 patients or those showing mild symptoms of the virus, said health officials.

The IAS officer hails from an ordinary background. His father was a clerk at the UP government secretariat in Lucknow and mother a primary school teacher when he cracked the civil services examination in 2017.

Efforts to reach Nalanda district magistrate Yogendra Singh proved futile as he did not respond to phone calls or text message.

This is the first case of an IAS officer testing positive in Bihar.

Earlier, a young Indian Police Service (IPS) officer from Jharkhand cadre, posted as Superintendent of Police in Ranchi, had been quarantined at the Patna Medical College Hospital after the officer and his wife returned from their honeymoon in Italy. The IPS officer and his wife had left Indian shores for Italy and Switzerland on March 8 and returned on March 13.

Around 30 policemen, including 21 from the Bihar Military Police (BMP) alone, have tested positive for the virus so far in the state. The BMP-14 headquarters and barrack is at Khajpura, which is a designated red zone.

An auxiliary nursing midwife (ANM) from Parwalpur had also tested positive for the virus on May 12. The government had extensively used ANMs and anganwadi workers (AWW) for its house-to-house survey across the state to screen people for Covid-19.

Nalanda, with 63 cases, is among Bihar’s top five districts, contributing to 953 Covid-19 cases in the state. As on Thursday noon, Bihar has 546 active cases after seven deaths and 400 patients having been cured and discharged from government facilities so far.