Following the detection of three positive COVID cases in Belagavi district, officials are taking steps to contain the spread as per established protocol.
All the three patients are in the quarantine ward in the designated hospital and none of them have any symptoms. One is a 70-year-old male who has no co morbidity conditions; the second is a 20-year-old healthy male; and the third is a 26-year-old healthy male, doctors said.
A buffer zone of 3-km radius has been set up around the localities where they lived, including Kasai Galli, Bilgundi and Hire Bagewadi. In Bilgundi and Hire Bagewadi villages, gram panchyat officers used village heralders to announce that a resident had tested positive.
Police have erected barricades outside the camp area that includes the military cantonment and Bilgundi village that connects Belagavi to Maharashtra and Bagewadi village that connects Belagavi to Dharwad-Hubballi.
Police have also cordoned off Darbar Galli and Kasab Galli areas as the Tablighi Jamaat Shoora mosque is situated there. The area around the Tablighi Jamaat Nizamuddin mosque near Ramteerth Nagar has also been cordoned off for security reasons.
But in several other villages, residents have blocked access to their villages out of fear of spread of the virus.
The work of tracing primary and secondary contacts is nearly complete and officials have detected 37 primary contacts of the three persons. Throat swabs of these persons have been sent for testing.
Officers say they have been able to trace the travel history of one person. Patient number 128 had travelled to New Delhi from Belagavi on February 12. The 20-year-old man reached the Nizamuddin railway station and left for Chekada village in Uttar Pradesh. Officials suspect he has been infected during travel or at the railway station. He returned to Belagavi on March 21 and reached his village by a van driven by his cousin.
It is getting difficult to collect the travel history and other details of the other patients, police officer said. “We are trying to use community leaders as mediators , along with doctors from the community to persuade them and reduce their panic,” an officer said.
