Genesis of India’s biggest hot spot

ON MAR 29, SIX FROM JAMAAT HEADQUARTERS WERE CONFIRMED WITH COVID-19; THE NEXT

DAY, THE NUMBER

GREW TO 24

NEW DELHI : On March 25 as Indians woke up to the first day of a three-week lockdown to stave off the Covid-19 epidemic, disease surveillance officials in the national capital had just begun uncovering a problem that would soon turn into an epidemiological headache spanning 19 states: hundreds of members of a religious sect may have already taken the infection to far reaches of the country, sharing flights, buses, trains and community events even before the country could be shut down.

Tips about an infection hotspot at the Tablighi Jamaat’s Nizamuddin headquarters began trickling in to the Delhi Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) office that week, leading the district surveillance officer (DSO) to dispatch a team on March 26. Six people were found with symptoms at the building, isolated and sent for testing.

On March 29, the six were confirmed as having Covid-19. A day later, the number grew to 24. The reports of the 441 people from the Markaz suspected to have the disease are still awaited.

IMPORTED INFECTION?

The origin of the infection in the sect possibly goes back to February 27, when 16,000 members began a congregation at the Sri Petaling mosque in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Over four days, hundreds of worshippers prayed shoulder-to-shoulder inside a mosque complex similar to the one in Nizamuddin, while some guests posted selfies as they shared food, social posts from the event would later show.

Among the attendees were those from China and South Korea -- two countries with high rates of coronavirus infections at the time.

Two weeks later, Malaysia’s cases grew to nearly 670 -- 500 of these had been at the congregation, known as an Ijtema. As the foreign attendees headed back home, Brunei confirmed 50 cases linked to the gathering, Singapore identified five, Cambodia 13 and Thailand at least two.

Around the same time, in midmarch, Indonesia cancelled a

Tablighi Jamaat Ijtema, but not before thousands had already gathered on the Sulawei islands.

In India, officials are now drawing connections to cases in these countries. According to immigration data accessed by HT, at least 227 foreigners were among the estimated 8,000 who had been at the Nizamuddin headquarters in March – overlapping with other visitors in the six-storey, hostel-like facility with common cooking and dining facilities. The foreigners included people from Malaysia

and Indonesia (where large crowds had already gathered) and China, where infections had by then been widespread.

A significant number of the international arrivals took place around March 10, according to officials in the Delhi Police. It wasn’t until later that the Indian government made quarantine mandatory for arrivals from China (March 13) and banned flights from Malaysia (March 17).

Some of the people who arrived, either with the infection

or were subsequently infected at the building in Nizamuddin, began travelling before the outbreak turned into a serious crisis for India. It is these people whose illness would later connect back to the building in Nizamuddin as disease surveillance officers in several states started separately sounding out their Delhi counterparts.

THE INDONESIAN GROUP

The most important alert came from Telangana, where officials found 10 Indonesians who

boarded the Andhra Pradesh Sampark Kranti in Delhi on March 13 to arrive at Ramagundam in Telangana the next day.

From there, they group went to Karimnagar in autorickshaws, took part in an Ijtema a day later and spent nights at a local madarsa. Around March 16, some of their local associates noticed their symptoms – bringing to light what would be the earliest confirmed case linked to the Tablighi Jamaat’s Delhi centre.

According to a health official

ANDAMAN ISLANDS

On March 24, a day before the domestic flight ban kicked in, a man in his late 20s reached Port Blair and started showing symptoms for the disease. He tested positive on Sunday, triggering the contact-tracing exercise that placed him at the building in Nizamuddin a week ago.

Routinely, officials alert their counterparts in other states if the contact-tracing determines that a Covid-19 patient was in close vicinity to others.

According to disease surveillance official, he took a flight with a stopover at Kolkata. At least one other person who was with him on the flight has also tested positive.