India’s new strain of Coronavirus (CCP) (COVID-19) has now spread to many neighboring countries, leading to a rapidly escalating outbreak in South Asia. Nepal, a neighboring country to India, has recently seen a surge in confirmed cases in a single day, with hospitals filled with infected patients and a shortage of medical supplies. As the epidemic worsens rapidly, the streets of Nepal are also seeing the burning of bodies.
A crematorium in Kathmandu, Nepal, May 5, 2021. (PRAKASH MATHEMA/AFP via Getty Images)
According to Nepal’s health department, the country recorded 7,660 new confirmed cases and 55 deaths on May 4, both another single-day high. This is the third consecutive day that the number of confirmed cases in Nepal has exceeded 7,000.
A video posted by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post on Twitter that day showed a large number of bodies being cremated in the street.
Nepal’s epidemiology and disease control department said a British variant and an Indian double mutant strain of the virus have been detected in the country.
Foreign media reports indicate that Nepal is also in crisis since the second wave of the outbreak in India, with thousands of Nepalese workers working in India returning home across the border. Although the country’s government ordered testing and quarantine of people entering the country, there are still many people secretly returning to their villages.
Reports say that nearly 40 percent of all people who have been tested for the new coronavirus have been diagnosed with the infection. Currently, there is already a shortage of hospital beds, oxygen and other medical supplies in Nepal.
Some doctors working in cities bordering Nepal and India have revealed that the outbreak there is developing in an increasingly frightening way, with hospitals packed with infected patients, including children and young people, who need ventilators and intensive care, with many patients sleeping on the floor and in the corridors.
“The situation is out of control and we are in a helpless situation.” Rajan Pandey, a doctor in western Nepal’s Banke district, says Nepal is turning into a “mini India.
Krishna Prasad Poudel, director of Nepal’s Center for Epidemiology and Disease Control, attributes the outbreak to several mutated viruses from Britain and India brought by people returning from India. Neighboring countries of India such as Bangladesh and Pakistan are also experiencing an increase in the outbreak.
As the outbreak rages, Nepalese authorities have imposed strict restrictions, with 25 out of a total of 77 districts under full or partial lockdown. on the evening of April 30, Nepal’s Epidemic Crisis Management Center recommended that the cabinet suspend international and domestic flight operations, while closing 22 border crossings with India.
Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has ordered that all international flights will be banned from entering the country and all domestic flights will be suspended from 6 to 14.
Nepal is currently in talks with Russia to seek to provide vaccines.
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