Bhutan Covid surge sparks concerns for N Bengal, Sikkim: Active cases double in 10 days in neighbouring country PARAGERSWAS

Courtesy & source: Kuensel Online

Kuensel Online

SNS, SILIGURI, 16 APRIL 2022: Though Covid-19 cases in India and in most of its neighboring countries are in continuous declining with infections now at their lowest level in more than two years, to number of daily Covid cases in Bhutan, which shares a 215- km-long border with north Bengal and Sikkim, has gone up from 240 on March 22 to 1,879 on April 14.

The Himalayan kingdom, which had been able to slow the spread of the virus since the start of the pandemic there on July 30, 2020 through measures such as early screening and monitoring at entry points and testing and sealing its borders, has vaccinated more than 93 per cent of people aged over 12 with the second vaccine dose and provided booster shots to over 98 percent of the priority group.

However, the number of active cases in Bhutan has doubled in the past 10 days and experts in north Bengal believe that though surveillance at its borders are still in force, the record outbreak of cases in the country is most likely to spread across north Bengal, Sikkim and the north-east, and Siliguri, which is the business hub of the region, and is very much in the firing line.

A senior professor of the Department of Biotechnology, University of North Bengal, Dr Ranadhir Chakraborty, told this correspondent today that since there were close cultural and political ties between Bhutan and north Bengal and Sikkim, it would be very tough to prevent the infections in Bhutan from spreading across our region. 

"Bhutan has been reporting new highs in new coronavirus infections every day since March 20. The number has risen rapidly over the past ten days. We need to act now and we need to act fast to have any hope of containing a fresh wave of infections in our region. In the past two years, we have seen that the virus has no respect for borders and since many people come to our region from the Himalayan county, the authorities should immediately impose fresh restrictions and ensure that the residents here follow Covid appropriate behaviours more strictly," he said.

Dr Chakraborty stressed on the need for immediate genome sequencing of samples collected from infected patients in Bhutan to ascertain the exact cause of the sudden spike in covid cases there. 'The need of the howls a comprehensive cross-country collaboration between India and Bhutan to identify the strain, which is mainly responsible for the increase in the number of infected persons in Bhutan. India has developed a sound sequencing system over the last two years and the Bhutanese authorities should send the samples collected from infected patients in their country immediately to India for their genomic sequencing," he emphasized.

A noted surgeon of Siliguri, Dr Kaushik Bhattacharya, who agreed with Dr Chakraborty, felt the residents of north Bengal and Sikkim should be extremely vigilant to ensure that the virus does not enter into their region from Bhutan. "The numbers of covid cases are increasing in Delhi and Maharashtra as well, but the rise in cases in Bhutan is most alarming for us.

We have, no doubt, achieved some sort of immunity over the past twenty-four months and the new variants have proved to be less fatal, but we should still follow Covid protocols strictly as the time to drop our guard completely has not yet come," he cautioned.