The Tablighi Jamaat connection in spread of novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) is proving to be a big burden on Uttarakhand. On Saturday, six more cases of the dreaded disease which has been declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) were reported by the state health department. All these new patients are said to be Tablighi Jamaat followers who had attended the Jamaat congregation at Nizamuddin area of Delhi last month. With them the total number of the patients of the disease in the state jumped to 22. Of the six patients reported on Saturday, five are from Nainital district while one is from Haridwar district.
The five COVID -19 positive patients reported from Nainital on the day were taken out from Taj Mosque of Haldwani recently and their samples were sent for test on Thursday. All of them are said to be outsiders.
What has sent the health department of the state in tizzy is the fact that the disease has now spread to five of total 13 districts of the state. From the provisional state capital of Dehradun, 11 cases of the disease have been reported so far while five and four cases have been reported from Nainital and Udham Singh Nagar districts respectively. One case of the disease each has been reported from Haridwar and Pauri districts.
That the Jamaat attendees have caused a sudden spike in the COVID-19 cases in Uttarakhand can be understood from the fact that in last three days 15 cases of the disease have been reported by the health department and all of them are said to be the Jamaat followers.
The first patient of the disease was reported in the state on March 15 when an Indian Forest Service (IFS) trainee was found positive. From March 15 to April 1, seven cases of the disease cropped up in 18 days but in last three days 15 cases have been reported which account of 70 percent of total cases in the state.
The director general (DG) of state health services, Dr Amita Upreti confirmed that on Saturday ( till 5 pm) six new cases of the disease cropped up in the state. She said that reports of 59 swab samples were received by the state control room till 5 pm on Saturday and out of them 53 samples were found negative while six were positive for the disease.
She said 350 Tablighi Jamat followers have been kept under institutional quarantine in different parts of the state. She added that a total of 14989 persons in the state have been kept in home and institutional quarantine. On Saturday, the health department collected swab samples of 57 suspected patients of the disease. The department has so far collected 882 samples of suspected patients and has received reports of 746 samples while reports of 136 samples are awaited.