Srinagar worst-hit district

Tribune News Service

SRINAGAR, APRIL 9

On March 18, the authorities in Kashmir announced the first Covid case in Srinagar, triggering fear.

It was a 62-year-old woman from Khanyar with travel history to Saudi Arabia. Immediately, her contacts were traced and put under quarantine.

However, in less than three weeks, 50 more positive cases have been detected in the district, making it the hotspot of the UT.

The total number of positive cases in J&K are 184. There have been four deaths —three in Kashmir and one in Jammu.

Srinagar, a city with a population of nearly 1.4 million, is witnessing a surge in the number of cases, which are likely to go further up as the reports of many more samples collected are awaited, while many more are being collected daily.

The first death due to Covid also took place in Srinagar. The deceased was a 67-year-old man residing in the Hyderpora locality. He developed symptoms after returning from a religious congregation in Delhi and was admitted to the Chest Disease Hospital where he died of respiratory problems on March 26. After the death, more than 100 of his immediate contacts were traced and put in quarantine.

“He had developed symptoms on March 7 and continued to travel for days and later, died of respiratory failure,” a doctor who attended him said.

An official said as many as 402 people from Srinagar were traced who had taken part in the same religious event as the first deceased or had come in contact with the participants. Many of them later tested positive.

It is pertinent to mention that maximum of the positive cases were contacts or family members of the first few cases while a majority of those put in quarantine are students or professionals who came back before the lockdown from other parts of the country.

Also, the hospitals in the district are seeing an overwhelming rush as hundreds of people are undergoing testing and are being put under quarantine. Many areas have been declared red zones and the entry to such places has been completely barred to prevent social contacting. In Srinagar, the administration has declared 14 localities as red zones, including Ahmad Nagar, Lal Bazar, Hawal, Nishat, Khayam, Iddgah, Goripora, Chattabal, Hyderpora, Bemina, Jawahar Nagar, Natipora, Lasjan and Nowshera and three dozen other areas, which are witnessing a steep increase in coronavirus cases.

“Four hospitals in the Srinagar city are catering to the Covid crisis — SKIMS, Chest Disease Hospital, Jawahar Lal Nehru Memorial Hospital and JVC Hospital in Bemina,” a senior official of the district administration said.

Meanwhile, Dr AG Ahanger, Director of SKIMS, said 26 patients were admitted to the hospital and all were recovering well. “The microbiology team has so far tested 848 samples, of which 721 were negative and 65 were positive.”

While the experts say the infrastructure in Kashmir is not sufficient to meet the pandemic crisis, the authorities are likely to extend the lockdown as one of its strategies to combat the disease.