By Our Correspondent
Baitadi, Jan. 22: The risk of the coronavirus’s spread at the community level has shot up after the majority of Nepali returnees from India have been tested positive for the virus, and a vast majority of them are migrant workers.
A majority of the returnee coming via the border area of Jhulaghat have been tested positive for the virus.

Due to the lack of ambulance service, the only ambulance of the District Health Office, Baitadi is ferrying the infected migrant workers of Baitadi, Bajhang, Bajura and other districts of Sudurpaschim Province, who entered Nepal via Jhulaghat border point.
Chief of District Health Office, Baitadi Yogesh Prasad Bhatta, said since there was no holding centre at the border-point, there was no place to keep the infected people. “We cannot let the infected people go unattended. The only ambulance of the office keeps running all day to pick up infected persons from various districts,” he added.

Bhatta further claimed that even the local bodies were not sending their ambulances to pick up their own denizens at the border-point.
Meena Chand, deputy-chief of Dashrath Chand Municipality, said a health centre had been set up at Jhulaghat at the initiative of DHO and the municipality to carry out COVID tests.
However, other municipalities of Baitadi were not providing necessary assistance to the health centre, added Chand.

"During the first and second wave of COVID-19, we had also managed the migrant workers of Sudurpaschim and Karnali provinces," said Chand.
“So far, more than Rs. 10 million was spent on the management of the COVID-19-infected people. None of the district or any local body supported with the budget,” she added.
Chief of Jhulaghat Health Centre, Suraj Dhami said daily five to seven India returnees were being tested positive for the virus.

A majority of those testing positive are from Bajhang, Baitadi and Bajura, said Dhami.
“There is no arrangement of food and shelter for the infected at the border area. To make matter worse, there is only one ambulance to carry the infected people from different districts,” he added.
Khagendra Bharti, information officer at the District Administration Office, Baitadi, said they were facing hard time managing the infected people returning home via Jhulaghat.

Bharti said, “Chiefs of many local bodies have stopped attending meetings of the COVID-19 crisis management committee. They don't even have an ambulance. The situation exacerbated when the infected were told to walk home.”
Considering the dire situation, the office has requested the local bodies to provide ambulance service.

Health workers have also urged the local government to take effective measures to contain the virus’s spread citing that the cases of the people infected with the Omicron, a new variant of the coronavirus, have spiked in the border areas of late.
In recent days, Nepali workers in various states of India are returning home in greater numbers.