By Madhav Belbase, Chandrauta, April 1:  Quarantine facilities set up by the local governments of Kapilvastu sharing border with India have been occupied. The centers were set up amidst the warning of heightened health risk caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.    

It has been decided to put all those entering Nepal from India in quarantine. The Bijay Nagar rural municipality which shares its border with India has set up 127-bed quarantine and now it is occupied by 103 people returned from India recently. Numerous people entered Nepal using clandestine routes in the aftermath of a nationwide lockdown in Nepal and India to control the further spread of the virus.    

Bijaya Nagar Rural municipality's health division chief Yagya Adhikari said a noticeable number of Nepali people have been entering the country via the Jawabairath, Dalpur, and Thakpur border points. ''Initially we had built a 16-bed facility and later its size was expanded involving three schools.''

The rural municipality chair Gopal Thapa said the local government had managed free food for them.    

Similarly, there are 49 people in a 60-bed quarantine center based in the Suddhodhan rural municipality. Similarly, 19 people have been quarantined at a 19-bed center built by the Shivaraj municipality and 70 people remain in an 80-bed facility at Maharajgunj municipality.    
Population in quarantine facilities is increasing day by day, it is said.    

Most of them are the returnees from India. Shivraj municipality's administrative officer Sheshkant Poudel said they were preparing to set up the facilities in other three locations.    

The Krishnagar municipality sharing the border with India is learnt to have been planning to increase beds in its quarantine.

Ten local levels in the district have quarantine centers with the capacity of accommodating 506 people and till Tuesday, there were 373 people, according to Chief District Officer Dirgha Narayan Poudel.

They all are normal to date. Eight isolation rooms have been readied in the district and so far no person in the quarantine needs the isolation care.