3 test positive for virus in Ladakh

All educational institutions, including private tuition centres, closed in J&K.

Three patients have tested positive for coronavirus in the Union Territory of Ladakh, while one case was detected in Jammu and dozens of suspects are in the Srinagar Hospital waiting for test results to come. Officials said that they have taken all precautionary measures, including screening at the airports, and have cancelled all public meetings of officials, including public darbars, till 31 March as a precautionary measure.

Dozens of suspects were admitted in Srinagar and Jammu hospitals, and authorities decided to close all educational institutions, including schools, colleges and universities till 31 March in the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. In Ladakh, a third person has tested positive as more cases are under surveillance and their tests are awaited, doctors told the media on Friday.

With a lot of panic and scare in Jammu and Kashmir, the local administration on Wednesday not only closed all educational institutions, but even private tuition centres. Director NHM Bhupinder Kumar said that people should take all precautions and avoid huge assemblies to avoid coronavirus infection.

One of the doctors attending the suspect cases, told media that three persons have tested positive and all of them have travel history of visiting infected countries, including Iran. He said that the family members of all the three positive cases have also been moved to the isolation centre at the Heart Foundation Hospital. Reports from Ladakh said that most of the patients who are under surveillance and have tested positive belong to Chushot Gongma village, from where a lot of people had gone to Iran and returned last month.

Senior officers monitoring the situation, especially in the Kargil district of Ladakh, said that all those people who has recently come from Iran were being monitored closely and none of them had tested positive so far.

“None of the 117 residents of Kargil who arrived here from Iran has shown any symptoms of coronavirus so far,” an official told this reporter.

Deputy Commissioner Kargil told the media that they had established facilities for quarantine of suspected persons. He said that screening at the airport has been put in place and all suspected cases are being monitored.

Senior officers in Jammu and Kashmir said on Friday that one case tested positive while thousands of people are under surveillance. “Doctors have been deputed at medical centres across Kashmir. The J&K government has also deputed medical staff to screen foreigners at the Srinagar airport,” officials said.

Medical authorities in Srinagar confirmed to this reporter that 17 patients are in a quarantine ward of a hospital established recently. They further added that hundreds of people are under surveillance in their homes and their tests have been sent to the laboratories.