Siraha faces shortage of COVID-19 testing kits

Kathmandu - With increasing number of people arriving homes from India, Siraha, the district in southern plains in the state 2, faces shortages of RDT and PCR testing kits for the coronavirus. Though, till now, the district has a single confirmed case of COVID-19, the district lies in a vulnerable zone of the infection.

As said by Bariyarpatti rural municipality chair Santosh Mehata people desperate to returns homes are seen along the Nepal-India border in the district every day. ''We are making them to stay in quarantine, but the test has been hampered in the absence of kits,'' he said. Till Thursday, 74 peoples were rescued from the border point here and put in quarantine, but we were compelled to send 34 to the Aruahi rural municipality and 24 to the Laxmipur Patari without tests, he added.

As he said, they had been demanding kits from the District Health Office. Office chief Bishnu Dev Yadav also admitted that there was shortage of kits to conduct RDT on those people returning homes from India amidst the global pandemic of the virus. He went on to say that though new comers were being made to stay in quarantine centers set up along the major border points including Bhagawanpur, Bariyarpatti and Nawarajpur, the test has been challenging in absence of kits.

In the past one week, 598 people had arrived the border areas in the district and they have been put in different quarantine centers. But, they have been deprived of RDT which is said to be compulsory before sending them to their respective hometowns and determining the need of PCR test. The district first time had received around RDT kits which had been already run out of stock.

This has caused a major obstruction in expanding the testing coverage, according to the Office. The number of quarantine beds has been increased to 900 from 265 in the district. The beds have been added in six major locations including Bhagawanpur, Bairyarpatti, Aurahi, and Mirchaiya, confirmed Siraha's Chief District Officer Saroj Prasad Guragain.

According to the CDO, the district has no quarantine and isolation issues, but it is facing the issue of testing kits which needs to be immediately addressed. The border points in the district have been sealed and security arrangements have been sped up to stem the spread of virus.