People catching COVID-19 infection in quarantine in Jammu and Kashmir

Four cases in J&K raise questions regarding quarantine mechanism

With at least four persons, who had travelled back to Kashmir three weeks ago, testing positive even after completing two weeks of mandatory quarantine, health authorities are concerned that they may have got infected with COVID-19 at the quarantine facility itself.

While the quarantine for COVID-19 is meant to monitor suspected cases for symptoms for two weeks, four new cases from south Kashmir’s Shopian district has given rise to many questions regarding the manner and mechanism of the preventive locking process.

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Dr Naveed Nazir Shah, in-charge of COVID-19 at Chest Diseases Hospital in Srinagar, said it was quite possible that the people in quarantine were exposed to the virus in the facility they were sharing.

Urging authorities to follow quarantine guidelines in letter and spirit, he said: “People cannot be living too close to each other and huddling together. In the current scenario, it is important to maintain physical distance from everyone, symptoms or no symptoms.”

Prof Parvaiz A Koul, head department of internal and pulmonary medicine at territory care SKIMS Hospital in Srinagar says the “late positivity” could be due to two reasons. “The incubation period in these patients has been very long, which is quite rare, or they were infected at the quarantine itself,” he said.

Prof Koul, an influenza expert, said there is a possibility that one of the persons was already COVID-19 positive when the group was put under quarantine and that resulted in others getting infected due to cohabitation in a facility.

Advocating for home quarantine of suspected cases, he said: “If, under quarantine, people are not safeguarded against possible infection from each other, we are putting their lives at risk.”

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The four persons, along with seven other pilgrims, had returned to Srinagar on the same flight on March 16 in which elderly woman from Khanyar area of Srinagar who was Kashmir’s first COVID-19 positive case travelled. On their return, all of them were traced and put in quarantine, while their family members were instructed to stay at home and were put under surveillance.

The four people who have now tested positive, along with seven others, were discharged two weeks later in absence of any symptoms. However, soon after, they were again taken to hospital as one of their co-passengers had been found positive for COVID-19. Surprisingly, four from this group also tested positive, three weeks after their arrival from Saudi Arabia.