patient offered collective Eid prayers,

Shopian: A 50-year-old man from Shopian found positive of the novel Coronavirus a day ago participated in collective Eid-ul-Fitr prayers, visited neighbours and relatives  raising apprehensions of spreading the virus, a senior doctor said.

The sample of the patient from Chitragam suffering from kidney ailment was collected at Government Medical College Anantnag last week, where he had gone for dialysis of his kidneys. But the patient did not stay home as recommended by the authorities.

Block Medical Officer in Shopian’s Zainpora, Dr Khalid Abas, admitted that the patient visited GMC Anantnag for dialysis but he did not stay home.

“They  took samples on random basis and this man was advised to stay home but he even took part in Eid prayers at local mosque, collected donations and counted it,” he said.

According to him, they were informed by locals that the Covid-19 patient visited neighbours, friends and relatives in village after his samples were collected.

This has raised apprehensions he may have spread it locally, Dr Khalid said.

“On Monday, we went to village to trace contacts but wife of the positive patient escaped from our vehicle and hid in neighbour’s house. We traced her late night and forcibly took her into quarantine as well as the family,” he said.

Dr Khalid said that today they will trace more contacts of the man and will collect samples from doorsteps given the huge number of contacts which otherwise isn’t possible to quarantine.

Shopian has reported 129 cases of Covid19 among which 75 from a hotspot, Hirpora village. Of them, 107  have recovered and 22 patients are active with the disease so far.

(KR)