{"id":323716,"date":"2020-06-04T12:29:33","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T12:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=323716"},"modified":"2020-06-04T12:29:36","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T12:29:36","slug":"covid-19-cases-on-the-rise-in-kashmir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/covid-19-cases-on-the-rise-in-kashmir\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19 cases on the rise in Kashmir"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Despite a strict lockdown over the past two months, Kashmir has witnessed a steady rise of coronavirus cases. Over the past week the\u00a0<\/span>figure has intermittently gone beyond hundred a day, something that has <\/span>signalled an incipient community transmission in some areas.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the past two weeks, many patients admitted at Srinagar\u2019s Chest Diseases (CD) hospital have had no travel history or a traceable source of infection. One of them was 65 year old woman of Kulgam in South Kashmir. She was first admitted at the Surgical Intensive Care unit of Srinagar\u2019s Sri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital (SMHS). But two days later, she tested positive for Covid-19 and was shifted to the city\u2019s Chest Diseases Hospital where immediately after admission she suffered cardiac arrest and instantly died.<\/span><\/p>\n

She had no travel history, nor is there evidence that she had come into contact with a Covid-19 patient. Similarly, a 75-year-old man from Hilar in Kokernag, again South Kashmir, met the same fate. He also went from being admitted at the SMHS to being referred to the CD hospital\u00a0 after being diagnosed with coronavirus.\u00a0 Both, however, had underlying medical conditions and the Covid infection exacerbated their diseases, causing their deaths.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the worry for the doctors at SMHS is how did the two and the other similar cases get Covid-19 infection. \u201cWe can\u2019t say conclusively but there are indications of some community transmission,\u201d says Dr Nisarul Hassan, who is also the president of a faction of Doctors Association of Kashmir. \u201cBut it hasn\u2019t spread much. It is still localized\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kashmir Valley has witnessed a rising graph of\u00a0 Covid-19 positive cases since the lockdown began on March 25. More than twenty people have died of infection.\u00a0 And as things stand, the Valley looks still far from flattening the curve, let alone break the chain of infection. This too two months since the lockdown was imposed and the travel restrictions set in.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Covid-19 struck at a time when thousands of people were returning to the Valley after spending winter in other parts of the country or abroad. Hundreds were returning after performing pilgrimages in Saudi Arabia and Iran, which at the time was in throes of the infection.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Valley\u2019s first case, a 61-year-old woman from Khanyar area of downtown Srinagar had returned from Saudi Arabia after performing Umrah (pilgrimage) in Mecca. She has since recovered. Her case was followed by that of a cleric from uptown Srinagar who had returned from New Delhi after attending the now controversial Tablighi Jamaat conference at Nizamuddin. He died shortly after. Ever since cases have steadily mounted as the number of tests rose.<\/span><\/p>\n

A system has been put in place, as elsewhere in the country, whereby the Covid-19 suspects and people with travel history are tested and in case of any of them turning out to be positive, their contacts are also tested. The process has spawned a chain reaction that shows no sign of coming to an end. Along the way, it has become increasingly difficult to trace the infection to already identified cases, more so as new cases have come up.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMany fresh cases like one of Kulgam woman have startled us,\u201d says a doctor, who works as a nodal officer for coronavirus control. \u201cBut at the same time transmission hasn\u2019t gone beyond control. We are in a position to reign it in\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another doctor said the ongoing <\/span>Covid-19 testing regime couldn\u2019t by <\/span>itself\u00a0 determine the community transmission. \u201cWe follow a rigorous practice. We trace the contacts of Covid-19 positive <\/span>patients. So when there is a fresh positive case, it\u00a0 has a cause and a source,\u201d the doctor says. \u201cBut in order for us to determine the community transmission, we have to go beyond contract tracing. We have to test aggressively and randomly in specific areas. We have to test healthy people\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The doctors are recommending antibody testing as against Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) to check if any community transmission of virus has taken place. \u201cThe PCR test is done after a person has become infected. It detects the genetic information of the virus. That\u2019s only possible if the virus is there,\u201d says Dr Nisarul Hassan. \u201cThe antibody test is done on the asymptomatic and apparently healthy population. It tells us what percentage of the population has been infected. It tells us that a person had infection after the virus has been cleared from the system.\u00a0 This way we know who\u2019s been infected and who should be immune to a future infection.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But it is the cases that are coming up outside the contact tracing that are leading doctors to suspect community transmission. \u201cWe have come across some positive cases which were not part of the contact tracing. This has caused suspicion,\u201d says a doctor. \u201cHere, the patients don\u2019t have a travel history nor a history of having been in touch with any positive patients\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

In South Kashmir, thirteen pregnant women from South Kashmir \u2014 twelve from Anantnag district and one from Kulgam \u2014 were diagnosed as Covid-19 positive when the government made the testing mandatory for pregnant women in Kashmir. Earlier, two had died in Anantnag, allegedly because of medical negligence and mishandling of their cases. Over the past week, healthcare officials have tested more than 500 pregnant women in Anantnag district alone. Similarly, pregnant women are being tested in other districts too. According to the protocols, all pregnant women have to be treated as \u201ccovid-19 probable\u201d and those from red zones have to be tested in thirty-fourth week of their pregnancy.<\/span><\/p>\n

In April,\u00a0 in a case of a localized community transmission, sixty-four positive cases of novel coronavirus were reported over 10 days at Gund Jahangir hamlet in North Kashmir\u2019s Bandipora district. Scores of cases were also reported from the nearby Hajin township. The area, temporarily became known as Wuhan of Kashmir. But a strict lockdown and aggressive testing the area have brought the infections under control.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, at official level, the government has so far ruled out community transmission in the Valley. In a recent statement, the divisional commissioner, Kashmir, K Pandurang Pole\u00a0 asserted that the government knew the source of every case that has been detected here.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere is not a single case where we are facing any difficulty in tracing the source. Definitely, we are not in the community transmission mode,\u201d Pole told reporters.<\/span><\/p>\n

A doctor, however, suggested \u201ca broad-based epidemiological study\u201d to know the spread of the coronavirus in Kashmir.\u00a0 According to him, the government should consider taking at least 6000 samples all over the valley of a cross-section of population. \u201cThe sample should have pregnant women, aged, children, newborn, youths, labourers,\u00a0 health workers, other professions, high-risk areas, low-risk areas, contacts, travel history, no travel history, people with underline diseases, for a research study,\u201d he said. \u201cThis will help us credibly determine whether there has been a community transmission\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

letters@tehelka.com<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite a strict lockdown over the past two months, Kashmir has witnessed a steady rise of coronavirus cases. Over the past week the\u00a0figure has intermittently gone beyond hundred a day, something that has signalled an incipient community transmission in some areas. Over the past two weeks, many patients admitted at Srinagar\u2019s Chest Diseases (CD) hospital […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":323723,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,2205],"tags":[12750,43],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323716"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323716"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":323728,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323716\/revisions\/323728"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/323723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}