Category: Nagpur Local

Nagpur: For the second day in a row on Wednesday, the town did not report any new case of COVID-19. On Wednesday, all 57 samples sent Tuesday tested negative. With no new positive event, Wednesday also saw a decline in the number of high risk and low-risk contacts.

Official statistics issued by the collector suggested that 65 offenders are currently admitted to isolation wards at GMCH and IGGMCH. Tomorrow their samples will be put to the test.

Besides Buldhana, where one new case of COVID-19 was confirmed, on Wednesday no other place in Vidarbha reported any positive case. However, samples from all districts started coming in from Wednesday after the state government received a list of persons who had visited New Delhi and Nizamuddin for the congregation of Tablighi Jamaat.

Divisional Deputy Director (Health Services) for Akola Division Dr Riyaz Faruqui said ten people had travelled to New Delhi from Buldhana, 14 from Akola, five from Yavatmal and 20 from Amravati in his division, attending the Tablighi Jamaat. “Most of them were marked and summoned to their respective district headquarters quarantine facility. They’ll be collecting and checking their swab samples, “he said.

Samples from Chandrapur, Bhandara, Gondia and Nagpur were collected, too. Most of those samples are scheduled to be checked on Wednesday and Thursday at the IGGMCH lab facility. With regard to Nagpur, on Wednesday 54 samples were sent for testing and the reports are awaited.

Village-level screening in Amravati Amravati Zilla Parishad has planned to conduct screening of all villages and towns in a 5-day exercise starting April 2, ZP chief executive Amol Yedle has told.

Talking to TOI, Yedle said the district has 84 major towns with a population of over 3,000. “Health officers at PHCs will regularly visit these cities and check for cough, cold and fever for elderly people, disabled people and others,” he said. Villagers are to be screened by auxiliary nursing personnel, Asha employees and Anganvadi sevikas.

“We want to screen every single person in the rural belt. We don’t have an issue with employees. About 95 to 97% of workers are on duty. Approximately 44 absent doctors and medical staff were informed and 39 responded by joining duty while we relieved two contract staff. A departmental inquiry is being carried out against three others, “Yedle told. The CEO said all of the district’s 59 PHCs are available, so there’s a patient rush at OPDs. Every day, the CEO said, most OPDs have a hundred patients more.

“We keep a close eye on people coming from other parts of the country and the economy, and even from abroad. We stamped them, tested the swabs in their throats and placed them in quarantine at home. No one has yet tested positive in the district, “he said.

NAGPUR: The City Police and Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) established and quarantined 54 individuals who may have come into touch with those who attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in New Delhi earlier this month. Authorities have provided her with a list of 67 and the remaining 13 are being tracked.

While confirming this development on Wednesday, municipal commissioner Tukaram Mundhe said, “I appeal to everyone from the city who attended the meeting to notify the NMC through their control room numbers, apps or any official. Our department will be taking samples and getting Covid-19 tests completed. Not all 54 may have attended the meeting. “Government authorities are monitoring the movement of thousands of people who attended the meeting in late February and early March, and then dispersed to several parts of the country. There are those that are likely to bear the dreaded novel coronavirus. At least eight Muslim participants are dead—6 from Telangana, 1 from Tamil Nadu and New Delhi each.

In Yavatmal, 12 people had attended the event according to a release from the collector. Five of them came back while the others either travelled to other parts of the country or are in New Delhi alone. “All five have been confirmed and are now admitted here in the GMCH’s Isolation Ward,” reads the statement.

A senior police officer said the state government and the state director general of police (DGP) submitted the initial list of returned citizens from New Delhi. “These people were present at the same place as the Tablighi Jamaat on the occasion of the incident. Their numbers have been identified via the positions of the cell tower, and then sorted state and city wise, “he said.

There’s a misunderstanding about the number, though. A senior police official said the department only has 42 records. “While the others have been identified, two are untraceable. Thirty-nine of them were sent to the MLA hospital quarantine facility and nine were sent home in solitary confinement, “he said.

Just seven leaders from the city attended the international conference in New Delhi before returning on March 10 and 11, according to Abdul Bari Patel, secretary of the Tablighi Markaz party in Nagpur. They were part of the Nagpur-Chattisgarh Markaz 17-member delegates, who had a quota of 25 for the jodh (meet) where more than 1,000 people had gathered.

Patel told TOI one of the seven had fallen ill but Covid19 had no symptoms. “The member was admitted for urinary tract infection followed by pneumonia to Dr Aziz Khan’s hospital in the city. He was later also screened for coronavirus but the result was negative, “he said.

Bari said all the others are calm at the moment and have separated themselves. Three members had made a flight to Delhi while others were taking a train. On March 10, only one came back by flight while others reached Nagpur by train on March 11.

One foreign party of 8 from Myanmar arrived in Nagpur on March 6th, the seminary secretary said. Until going on to other parts of the country this group reported to Delhi HQ. Bari said everybody was screened, and they’re all fine.

Since February 28, five domestic jamaats, comprising 41 men and 5 women, have also been camping in the area. They had arrived from Delhi, Manipur and Jabalpur in different batches.

“They have no symptoms. All will get checked today, though. Mankapur’s jamaat has been moved to a rented flat while others are in Palloti Masjid, a madrasa in Mominpura, Darul Khal in Takia, and Azad Bunkar Colony’s local home, “he said.

The last arrived in the city on March 14 and were all trapped after the lockdown. Bari said the Markaz has sent full descriptions of everything to the city police special branch.

Visitors were also given a copy of government guidelines on social distancing and other measures in case someone falls ill. “We have asked them to diligently observe the norms,” Bari said.

A senior police inspector from Koradi police station is under the spotlight for punishing people “unnecessarily wandering” on the street by making them sit in the scorching sun. The officer, Wazir Sheikh, took the action at his own level by chalking out rounds at an intersection and making people found “pointlessly loitering” on the streets sit for six hours under the scorching Nagpur sun, in what he calls a “detention camp”.

“Don’t call it punishment. It’s a sunbath to disinfect them. People have no seriousness and awareness about coronavirus threat. So, we make them sit in those rounds in the detention camp chalked out on the street as per social distancing norms and enlighten them (prabodhan). We have also made then perform yoga today. We will have different themes on different days,” Sheikh told

Nagpur’s maximum temperature on Tuesday was 37.8 degrees Celsius.

Sheikh has also released a video of his “detention camp” on social media, which he feels could act as a deterrent. “We have so far taken this action against 59 persons. Besides, we have also fined their vehicles,” Sheikh said.

Asked if everyone found moving without a valid reason is detained, Sheikh said: “No. People above 50 and anyone apparently unfit to take it is spared.” Asked what if anyone gets a sunstroke instead of sunbath, Sheikh said, “We give them water, food, lassi, buttermilk, etc to rule this out.”

On whether only bike-riders are subjected to ”sunbath”, Sheikh said, “mostly yes. But we have detained some car passengers too. But nobody would generally take out his car for flimsy reasons.”

Joint Commissioner of Police Ravindra Kadam admitted that Sheikh hadn’t consulted them before initiating the action. “Our officers are at their wits’ end trying to dissuade people from venturing out but that doesn’t always work. So they decide their own strategies,” he said. Asked if he agreed with Sheikh’s method, Kadam said, “we have discouraged him from doing it.”

Sheikh, however, said, “We will continue the sunbath programme further. We will do it with different themes every day.” Asked why he didn’t opt for the regular impounding of vehicles to deter people, he said, “it requires a lot of manpower and later a lot of legal work.”

The officer, however, is confident that this would deter others from the misadventure of coming out on the streets.

“We will have to do it in novel ways since other methods are not paying off. Now, just think why you called. It’s because what we are doing is different, isn’t it? People will get the sense of the matter after feeling the heat,” he says.

In the continuing difficult weather of the COVID-19 pandemic in the region, we can see a ray of hope in Nagpur. Dr Sameer Arbat, a well-known Nagpur medical practitioner, seems to have built a safety box for complicated bronchoscopy procedures for suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients. Dr. Sameer was the youngest interventional pulmonologist in Nagpur, and was recently selected for the World Bronchology Association (WABIP) program as the youngest Foreign Faculty.

The doctor has developed the safety package in patients who are unsure about the COVID-19 disease to perform bronchoscopy procedures. This is designed by Dr. Sameer Arbat with a box with apertures on different sides while thinking about the Bronchoscopy Security Box. Two operator openings can be used, one is called the assistant opening and the other is known as the bronchoscopic opening. Every is protected by a plastic sheet valve that opens and, along with the bronchoscope, the inlet and exit of the hands.

In addition, an additional opening can be found that connects a negative suction cannula for the aerosol suction produced during the procedure. The patient then ends up getting the PVC sheet curtains to fit the patient’s shoulders or arms. A box can also be used for endotracheal intubation, which is an important method for monitoring COVID-19 patients. Just last month Dr. Sameer planned and conceptualized the unit.