Outrage in India as migrants sprayed with disinfectant

NEW DELHI: Indian health workers caused outrage on Monday by spraying a group of migrants with disinfectant, amid fears that a large scale movement of people from cities to the countryside risked spreading the coronavirus.

Footage showed a group of migrant workers sitting on a street in Bareilly, a district in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, as health officials in protective suits used hose pipes to douse them in disinfectant, prompting anger on social media.

Nitish Kumar, the top government official in the district, said health workers had been ordered to disinfect buses being used by the local authorities but in their zeal had also turned their hoses on migrant workers.

“I have asked for action to be taken against those responsible for this,” he said in a tweet.

India imposed a nationwide lockdown on March 25, with thousands of labourers subsequently fleeing cities for their home villages after work – and public transport – vanished.

India has registered more than a thousand cases of the new coronavirus, of whom 29 have died, the Health Ministry said on Monday.

Health officials say India is weeks away from a surge in cases that could overwhelm its weak public health system.

Shortages of protective health gear in India are already forcing some doctors to use raincoats and motorbike helmets while fighting the coronavirus.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on Monday said India was trying to procure bulk quantities of such gear, called personal protective equipment (PPE), domestically and from South Korea and China to meet the shortage.

But more than a dozen doctors on the front lines of treating the novel coronavirus, which has so far infected 1,251 people in India and killed 32, told Reuters they were concerned that without proper masks and coveralls, they could become carriers.

In the eastern city of Kolkata, junior doctors at the major coronavirus treatment facility – Beleghata Infectious Disease Hospital – were given plastic raincoats to examine patients last week, according to two doctors there and photographs reviewed by Reuters.

“We won’t work at the cost of our lives,’ said one of the doctors, who declined to be named because he feared retaliation from the authorities.

In northern Haryana state near New Delhi, Dr Sandeep Garg of ESI Hospital said he had been using a motorbike helmet because he didn’t have any N95 masks, which offer significant protection against virus particles.

“I put on a helmet – it has a visor in front so it covers my face, adding another layer over the surgical mask,” Garg said. – Reuters