Maharajganj and Hathras became the second and third districts in Uttar Pradesh to become coronavirus-free, officials said on Friday. Pilibhit was the first district in the state to shed the corona tag earlier this week.
“Maharajganj and Hathras districts have been also declared coronavirus free. The state government declared Pilibhit district coronavirus free on April 13 after the second report of two Covid patients was found negative in laboratory tests,” principal secretary, Health and Family Welfare, Amit Mohan Prasad said at a press conference in Lucknow.
In Maharajganj, all six Covid-19 patients tested negative for the Sars-Cov-2 virus for the second time, district magistrate Ujjwal Kumar said. There was no fresh Covid case in Maharajganj at present and the reports of 36 family members of the six patients were also negative, Kumar said.
The district administration decided to discharge all six patients from hospital and shifted them to a quarantine facility for observation, according to state government guidelines.
To make sure that no other person was infected with the coronavirus, health department teams collected five samples at random from the villages and sent them for tests, the district magistrate said.
“All the samples tested negative, it was a major relief for us,” he said.
In Hathras, the second report of four Covid positive patients was negative, principal secretary, health and family welfare, Amit Mohan Prasad said.
Hathras district magistrate Praveen Kumar Laxkar said all four patients were discharged from hospital and shifted to a quarantine centre. There was no positive case in the district, he said.
Last month, the district police had detained four Tablighi Jamaat members who had attended the Delhi congregation, he said.
After their samples tested positive, they were admitted to the isolation ward of the Covid hospital. The samples of 14 people who came in contact with the Jamaatis were negative, he said.
Similarly, Maharajganj was in the news after Tablighi Jamaat members, who attended the congregation organised in Nizamuddin Markaz in Delhi last month, arrived in the district a fortnight ago.
After receiving information that Tablighi Jamaat members were staying there, the district police raided dozens of villages near Kolhui town.
Four villages and the market area of Kolhui town were sealed.
The health department and police teams surveyed 7,500 people and screened 40,000. The samples of suspected patients were collected for tests.
The villages and markets were sanitised and people were directed to stay home, follow social distancing norms and inform the district administration about the movement of suspected persons, Kumar said.
After the Tablighi Jamaat members arrived in Maharajganj by train, the district administration alerted the Gorakhpur, Kushinagar and Deoria administration as people of these districts had travelled in the same coach as some of the infected patients.
All the passengers were tracked and screened, but they tested negative, Kumar said.
Maharajganj is located on the porous India-Nepal border. The border was sealed and samples of villagers nearby were collected for tests, he said.
These steps were taken after the district administration received information that some suspected patients had moved toward the border.
Meanwhile, 10,000 migrants workers from Maharajganj had arrived in the district from various states last month and they were shifted to quarantine centers established in schools.
Thousands of Nepali migrants settled in various cities also arrived at the border town of Sonauli.
“The Nepal administration refused them entry, but we called the Nepal Embassy to allow their citizens to cross the border. Permission was granted. After a few days, 300 Nepalese nationals again arrived on the border. They were quarantined in a school in Nautanwa town,” Kumar said.
“We are keeping our fingers crossed, the population of Maharajganj is around 25 lakh. A majority of the people are settled in the rural areas. There is a large movement of the migrant population from neighbouring Bihar and Nepal. Vigil has been tightened, mandis (markets) are being opened in the morning. The administration has hired postmen to distribute money among the villagers and regular sanitisation is being done in public places,” Kumar said.
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