By Siraj Khan/Govinda Sharma

Nepalgunj, May 19: A day after the second COVID-19 death in Nepal occurred in a quarantine at Narainapur-5, in the eastern part of Banke district, the area has further reported 59 positive cases on Monday.
With this, the total number of COVID-19 cases in Narainapur Rural Municipality alone has reached 67 while in Banke district has 93 cases in total, according to District Public Health Office, Banke.
Following the death and spike in cases, Narainapur has been declared as a hotspot and sealed off from all four sides, according to the local administration. The detection of a high number of cases in a single day has left not only Narainapur but everyone in Banke worried.
Assistant Chief District Officer of Banke Hari Pyakurel said that the area had been sealed off and the administration and security forces, including Nepal
Police, Armed Police Force and Nepal Army

had been deployed in the area by exercising high caution. Travel to and from Narainapur has been closed and high security alert is in place, Pyakurel added.
With the high number of cases, it has sent shock waves throughout Narainapur with families of those under quarantine panicking, said Naraianpur Rural Municipality’s chair Istiyak Ahmad Sah.
Narainapur is located 35kilometres south east from the Banke district headquarters, Nepalgunj.
Earlier in Banke, 25 COVID-19 cases were detected in Ward Number 8 of Nepalgunj Municipality and all of them are undergoing treatment in isolation at Khajura-based Hospital.

200 isolation beds to be added in Banke, quarantine condition to be improved
Meanwhile, owing to high number of cases and a death, a meeting of the District-level COVID-19 Crisis Management Centre held in Nepalgunj under the chairmanship of Banke’s Chief District Officee Kumar Bahadur Khadka in the presence of State 5’s Minister of Social Development Sudarshan Baral decided to add 200 isolation beds in the district. With the increase in cases, Baral is in Nepalgunj and coordinating the response efforts.
The meeting also decided to improve the condition in the existing quarantine centres following complaints of lack of proper condition, food, water and crowd in the quarantines set up by local levels. The meeting has decided to provide mosquito nets and other necessary materials in order to manage the quarantines better.