The body of the 50-year-old COVID-19 patient who died at Gandhi hospital in Hyderabad the previous day, was given a quiet burial in the small hours of Thursday at the burial ground in Nirmal district headquarters town to where he belonged.
The ambulance carrying the body reached town from Hyderabad around 4 a.m. and the burial took place with only a couple of close relatives, municipal workers and other authorities in attendance after performance of the last prayers and religious rites.
Nirmal district authorities swung into action to control any further spread of the COVID-19 infestation by cordoning off Zohranagar locality, early in the day. Prohibitory orders were imposed in the locality to restrict people coming out of homes.
Supply of essentials
Collector Md. Musharraf Ali Faruqui toured the area on foot making announcements about restrictions on movement of people. Asking locals not to venture out of their homes, he assured them that all essentials, including rations and vegetables will be supplied at their doorsteps.
According to District Medical and Health Officer Vasanth, an extent of one km radius in and around Zohranagar and a three km radius of buffer area was disinfected using fire tenders. “The one km radius area is where the patient might have come in personal contact with people,” the official said.
All the homes in the locality have been closed and house-to-house survey was done to identify people who may have come in contact with the patient and conduct tests for COVID-19 infection on them. As many as 100 medical teams will execute this task.
Contacts screened
The immediate family of the deceased as well as those who were staying in the rented portions of the house were screened and put in quarantine. As many as 36 people were quarantined which included eight family members who were primary and secondary contacts since he arrived from Delhi.
The deceased had attended the Tabligh Jamaat at Dehli having left for Delhi on March 13. He returned to Hyderabad’s Shamshabad airport on March 18 and straight away went to Nirmal.
He contacted a local doctor the next day who suggested him to undergo tests for typhoid which he was down with. The deceased stayed at home since then until a casual visitor met him on March 29.
On that day he was traced by authorities who were looking for Jamaat returnees in town and was shifted to Nirmal Area hospital as his health condition was not good and he had developed symptoms of COVID-19. The next day he was admitted to Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad where he died of cardiac arrest on April 1.
