Published in: The Daily Star

Date: 16 Mar 2020

Despite growing concern over people moving about freely in self-quarantine, the government allowed 349, who returned home from Italy over the last two days, to go home.

“None of them showed any coronavirus symptoms during screening. For this reason, we have sent them to home quarantine under the supervision of local administrations,” Prof Meerjady Sabrina Flora, director of Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research, told The Daily Star.

Local administrations and public representatives have been assigned to ensure that all the returnees stay in self-quarantine, she added.

Forty-eight of those who came back home from Italy on Saturday were sent to a makeshift quarantine centre in Gazipur’s Pubail.

Gazipur Civil Surgeon Khairuzzaman said four of them were hospitalised in the capital yesterday as they had fever. Forty-four others were sent to home quarantine.

According to the IEDCR, 2,314 people are in self-quarantine across the country.

Besides, 10 people were kept in isolation at different hospitals, said the IEDCR director.

However, many of them in self-quarantine at home reportedly are not following the rules for quarantine and coming into contact with family members and locals, increasing the risk of spreading novel coronavirus.

A Bangladeshi expatriate from Saudi Arabia was fined Tk 10,000 by a mobile court for violating his home quarantine conditions in Manikganj yesterday evening.

“Many are thinking they are not infected as they spent 14 days in quarantine in foreign countries. The reality, however, is that they might be infected during the travel,” Prof Sabrina said in her daily briefing.

“If anybody does not follow the rules of home quarantine, we would be forced to bring them under institutional quarantine,” she warned.

She said, “If you suspect you’re infected, inform us over phone first. We would instruct the next step. But please don’t come to IEDCR directly.”

If needed, the IEDCR medical team would visit homes of suspected COVID-19 patients and collect samples, the director said.

In the last 24 hours, from 8:00am Saturday to 8:00am yesterday, the IEDCR tested 20 people and found two positive cases.

The IEDCR has tested 231 people so far.

Of the new patients — both males — one returned from Italy and another from Germany around two weeks ago.

MINISTER BRIEFING

Meanwhile, Health Minister Zahid Maleque, mentioning several directives issued to different ministries, said they suggested that labour and industries ministries check temperature of workers. “We suggested them that they ask workers to inform their concerned departments about their relatives who have returned to Bangladesh recently.”

Briefing the media after an emergency meeting of the inter-ministerial committee on COVID-19, he said, “We’re giving more priority to the hygiene factor in public transport. We urged transport owners to let passengers to get into public transport after washing their hands with sanitisers and clean the whole vehicle with disinfectants after a trip.”

He also requested the expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry to ask expatriates not to come to Bangladesh right now through their relatives. “Because they’ve brought coronavirus to the country,” he added.

The minister said they urged local government and social welfare ministries to run awareness programmes in slums and people living in overcrowded areas.

PATIENT FLEES FROM HOSPITAL

A suspected COVID-19 patient fled from Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital in the capital yesterday.

The 40-year-old, who returned home from Bahrain, was admitted to the hospital’s male medicine ward around 8:00am on Saturday.

He was suffering from fever, cough and sneezing and breathing difficulties, the hospital’s Director Uttam Kumar Barua told this newspaper.

After examining his health condition, doctors suspected that it might be a case of coronavirus infection. So, they called for an IEDCR team, he said.

When the IEDCR team reached the hospital around 12:30pm yesterday, doctors could not find him and his wife who was attending him, he added.

Uma Rani Saha, a nurse at the hospital, told this paper that the patient was very nervous when he heard that he might be infected with coronavirus.

Source:

https://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/news/353-italy-returnees-leave-quarantine-1881349