Kathmandu, April 22
Nepal recorded 11 new cases of coronavirus infection on Tuesday; all of them are from Bhulke, Triyuga municipality-3 of Udayapur district.
The Ministry of Health and Population confirms that they are all locals who got in contact with the Muslims who attended a religious function in India recently.
With this, the country has entered the third stage of the coronavirus outbreak, the community transmission. In the first stage, the country only saw ‘imported cases’ when all the infected persons had recently come home from other countries with the infection.
The first ‘local transmission’ case was confirmed on April 4, when the officials said the country entered the second stage of the transmission.
Public health expert Dr Anup Subedi says Bhulke of Udayapur has now been the hotspot of the coronavirus infection.
However, the government is yet to officially announce the country’s entry into the third stage. “So far, the positive cases are those who were in contact with other infected persons. We will look into a few more cases and decide if the infection has reached the community level,” an expert advisor to the Ministry of Health, Dr Khem Karki, says.
Meanwhile, Udayapur district officials have sealed all borders of the district to prevent further spread of the virus.
