Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, Apr 5: The health department has expressed concern that many people in the capital complex are blatantly ignoring the strict advisory issued by the department, urging them to maintain home-quarantine guidelines and social distancing.
According to a recent report by the flying squads constituted under the capital complex district medical officer, 19 people, including returnees from Delhi, Shillong, Daporijo and other places, assembled at a prayer centre in Lobi on Saturday and participated in fasting and praying.
Although the medical team noted that none of them showed any symptoms, it advised fully quarantining the prayer centre.
The medical team later met a member of the Lobi Women Federation to ensure that everyone observes home quarantine, and that any kind of construction work in the area during the lockdown period is halted.
Till Saturday, a total of 36 people – 23 males and 13 females – had been quarantined in the capital complex.
TRIHMS NCD nodal officer, Dr Gomi Basar, informed The Arunachal Times that the primary reports on the swab samples taken from seven returnees from the Nizamuddin Markaz event were found to be negative, and that secondary samples will be sent for testing on Monday, as per procedure.
Dr Basar appealed to everyone to voluntarily come forward with information regarding their travel histories in the past two weeks, so that the health department may ascertain their health condition.
“Not informing the health department and hiding details is not going to help anyone. Also, we should desist from ostracizing students and other returnees from outside the state. We should help them in maintaining quarantine and get medical help if they develop any symptoms like fever, dry cough and breathing difficulties, especially within 14 days of history of travel,” he said.
As per the reports issued by the flying squads engaged in contact tracking, most of the students and other domestic and international travellers have been tracked based on information from the DRCs, airports, and private travel agents.
Dr Basar said, “It was part of the flying squads’ work during the initial phase. We started with the district administration and the IMA’s Arunachal branch, which used to get 10 to 20 mobile numbers with names per day. We used to call to confirm their addresses and advise them home quarantine. Now we are in the second stage, wherein, with the help of medical officers and their staffs, each MO is visiting the homes of those in home quarantine and ensuring that they are maintaining the quarantine guidelines.
“We will keep doing it till we identify all the returnees from outside the state, and that’s why we need everyone’s cooperation,” Dr Basar said.
He informed that the data collected so far would help in finding out the possible number of infected people in case Covid-19 spreads in any of the identified localities within the capital region.
“It will help in containment as well as in planning further management. Right now we are using our staffs as well as the Indian Red Cross Society’s volunteers in every colony and pocket to get their data,” Dr Basar said.
