Coronavirus: 33 new cases take J-K reports tally to 158

Samaan Lateef
Tribune News Service
Srinagar, April 8

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At least  33 people tested positive for coronavirus in Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday, a government spokesperson said—a development that causes the union territory’s infection tally to climb to 158 cases with three deaths.

Officials said 19 samples have been tested positive for the CoVID-19 at Chest Disease hospital, Srinagar 11 at Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), Srinagar and three at Jammu.

“At Chest Disease Lab, 10 samples had come from JLNM hospital, Srinagar, 2 from Pulwama, and 7 from GMC Anantnag,” Dr Muhammad Salim Khan, a government spokesperson who is also head of the department Community Medicine at Government Medical College Srinagar, said.

The fresh positive cases 15 from Srinagar, seven from Anantnag, four from Bandipora, two from Pulwama, one each from Baramulla and Kupwara districts, officials said.

With the fresh cases, Kashmir has crossed the three-figure mark and total number has gone up 128.

Officials said J&K had total 158 cases and 149 of them were active. “We have 122 active cases in Kashmir and 27 in Jammu now. Six persons have recovered and three died,” said a health official.

 The fresh spike in CoVID-19 cases come a day after a 50-year-old man of Gund Jahangir village in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district was tested positive hours after his death at Siri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) Hospital Srinagar.

On Tuesday, 15 fresh cases were reported from J&K, including six from Jammu, four from Srinagar, three from Bandipora, and two from Baramulla.

At least 37,713 travellers and persons in contact with suspected cases have been put under surveillance, which include 9,209 persons in home quarantine, 118 in hospital quarantine, 567 in hospital isolation and 20,735 under home surveillance.

As coronavirus cases are on the rise in Jammu and Kashmir, health authorities have implemented a cluster containment strategy by creating red and buffer zones to deal with the contagion.

At least 43 localities in Kashmir and 13 in Jammu Division have been declared as red zones after they witnessed more than two cases at a time. These zones comprise a population of nearly 1.5 lakh.

“The cluster containment zones are created after we find more than two cases at the same place and time. It’s aimed to contain the disease within a defined geographic area by controlling the movement of people in and out of these zones, early detection of cases, breaking the chain of transmission, and thus preventing its spread to new areas,” said Dr Qazi Haroon, an officer on special duty at the Directorate of Health Services in Kashmir.

“It is a barrier erected around the focus of infection,” Haroon said.