Rupandehi, May 4 :  High alert measures have been placed in State 5 following the confirmation of 17 coronavirus infection cases. Seventeen people have been confirmed to have contracted the virus in the State on last Saturday and Sunday. A man from Rupandehi, who had been working at tailor shops at Gandhinagar in India, was said to have transmitted the virus infection to others. The tailor worker had reached the State at 1.00pm on April 7 from his workplace at Gandhinagar.    
He entered Nepali territories unhindered. He was quarantined right after he reached his home. Now he has been kept in isolation in Butwal after he was tested positive for the infection, it has been said. His swabs were tested at the National Public Health Laboratory, Teku, Kathmandu.    
A meeting of the security committees of all the districts of the State decided to step up security and alertness measures at the transit points with India following the conformation of the coronavirus infection, said the State police office's spokesperson Nawaraj Pokharel. "The State's borders sharing India have been sealed off completely," he said.    
As a result of the detection of many infection cases in two days, local people in the area including Marchawar and Butwal have been terrified a lot. "We cannot be sure that others cannot enter Nepal easily through transits with India. We at the borders are terrified," said a local Ghana Shyam Gupta of Lumbini-10. Another infected woman, 25, of Kothimai in Rupandehi is receiving treatment at Butwal-based corona hospital.     
Likewise, an all party meeting decided to close Nepalgunj-1 following the confirmation of 16 cases on Saturday and Sunday, said ward chair Pramod Rijal. Mayor of Nepalgunj Sub Metropolitan City Dr Dhawal Shamsher Rana and ward chair of Nepalgunj-9 Bishnu Bahadur Lama asked local people to take cautions and stay home at this tough situation.    
Of 90 tested for the virus at Bheri Hospital Nealgunj on Saturday, 15 are confirmed to have been contracted with the virus. The tests were conducted after a 60-year-old man was tested positive for the virus on Friday. The infected were in contact with the man. The infected man had been staying at a mosque in the area. Swabs of four suspected people have been collected on Sunday and the results are awaited. Fifteen infected people on Sunday have been admitted to a corona hospital, Khajura.