43 DOCTORS, 200 SECURITYMEN TEST POSITIVE IN KASHMIR

MARCHING ON Policemen and health workers are the frontline warriors in our fight against Covid-19. With India expected to hit the coronavirus peak this month, Hindustan Times reporters take a look at how the health and police departments in J&K, Himachal

SRINAGAR:Forty-three doctors in Kashmir have tested positive for Covid-19 while treating coronavirus patients in hospitals across the Union territory.

Director, health services, Kashmir, Dr Samir Matto says, “Almost all of them are doing fine.”

Dr Javeed Iqbal Monga, who is working at Government Medical College, Baramulla, was the first doctor from Kashmir Valley to have contracted the infection. His wife also tested positive and they were hospitalised at Srinagar’s Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) for three weeks before they tested negative.

“I was the first doctor from Kashmir to get Covid-19. I got the virus while performing intubation of a patient at Baramulla Medical College. I was scared initially because my condition was getting from bad to worse, but after a week of treatment, I started recovering,” he says.

Security personnel have also borne the brunt of coronavirus while performing their duties.

More than 200 security personnel, including policemen, Central Reserve Paramilitary Force personnel and soldiers, have tested positive in different parts of Kashmir.

PART OF JOB, 12 JAMMU DOCTORS BACK ON DUTY

JAMMU: With a testing rate of 25,000 per million and a doubling rate of 22 days, Jammu and Kashmir has fortunately not seen a single death of a doctor or security personnel .

“We haven’t lost any health worker or policeman to Covid though we have positive cases among them but the figure keeps changing,” says Bhupinder Kumar, the nodal officer of Covid-19 mitigation efforts in J&K.

Twelve doctors engaged in treating Covid cases have tested positive . Kathua district police chief Shailendra Kumar Mishra admits that six CAPF personnel are undergoing treatment.