Srinagar: The administration is going for mass sampling of residents in a particular locality in Gund Jahangir village of north Kashmir Bandipora district after a vortex of COVID-19 cases has been detected in the area.
Gund Jahangir, a village with 604 households and 3,650 residents in Bandipora district is in the middle of what apparently looks like community transmission of novel coronavirus after 33 people tested Covid-19 positive in the village.
But even aggravating is the situation is one particular mohalla in the village, whose residents pray for mass sampling and testing.
Twenty nine of the 33 cases have come from Danger Mohalla, which has 70 households with a population of 400.
The cases have surfaced after a 54-year-old COVID-19 positive resident of the mohalla passed away on April 7 and is believed to be the source of the spread.
With increasing cases of the covid-19, the residents are psychologically disturbed, who have now locked themselves in their houses to observe social distancing.
“We have now locked our doors and prefer to remain indoors most of the time. The administration should screen and test the entire village so that people can have a sigh of relief and the pandemic,” said a local resident Mehraj-Ud-Din.
To identity and isolate each and every one in the locality, the administration has started mass sampling of the people in the village.
“We actually started mass sampling as a testing facility has been established at Sumbal. First we will conduct medical test of those who are in administrative quarantine. Gradually, let us see how it works,” SDM Sumbal Syed Shahnawaz Bukhari told The Kashmir Monitor.
“After testing people in administrative quarantine, we will also screen and test people of Danger mohalla on a large scale. We are expecting test kits to reach here. Later, we will conduct tests of every household in Danger Mohalla,” he said.
As per the official figures, from Gunj Jehangir 31 locals have been kept in hospital quarantine, 150 in administrative quarantine and around 400 in home quarantine.
The administration has declared the entire village as red zone where police and paramilitary personnel have been deployed to enforce the lockdown.
Block Medical officer Hajin, Dr Aijaz Ahmad said that five medical teams have been deputed in the village to trace the contacts of Covid-19 positive cases.
“We can’t say that it is community spread in the village as a particular family which recently lost one of their members to Covid-19 has 11 affected persons. Right now our medical officers are on the job to do contact tracing and screening of the suspected cases,” he said.
Dr Ahmad hoped the number of cases come down in the village since the residents are observing all precautionary measures. “Day before yesterday we had just two cases from the village,” he said.
