KATHMANDU: As the globe edged past the 3 million mark, Nepal’s Birgunj in Parsa district has been a ‘hotspot’ as 17 more coronavirus cases were confirmed in the city on Wednesday.
The Ministry of Health and Population has, therefore, deployed a special team led by Nepali Army to collect samples in the ‘Covid-19 hotspot Udaypur, Birgunj and Nepalgunj.
Dr Bikash Devkota, spokesperson at the Ministry of Health and Population confirmed that a special team deployed in the most vulnerable zones in terms of COVID-19 outbreak to collect samples.
The team will collect 500 samples in Udaypur and 1,000 samples each in Birgunj and Nepalgunj.
According to the ministry, the team is set to collect the samples from the family and relatives of the COVID-19 infected persons including their contact persons and suspicious people.
Birgunj has been a hotspot as 17 news cases of the infection have been confirmed on Wednesday alone. This means that when many clusters are identified in a particular place, it becomes a hotspot.
Among them is a 2-month-old, according to Nepal’s Health Ministry. With this, the total number of COVID-19 cases in the country has reached 99.
Spokesperson Devkota informed that 17 new cases, 7 female and 10 male, have been recorded from Birgunj, and belong to the same family.
The age ranges from 2 months to 66 years.
Their throat swab samples have been sent to National Public Health Laboratory (NPHL) in Kathmandu for tests, while they have been kept in isolation of the Birgunj-based Narayani Hospital.
The total number of infected persons in Birgunj has reached 26.
Likewise, 23 people in Nepalgunj have so far tested positive for the pandemic virus.
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