After the detection of three new positive coronavirus cases in the border town of Birgunj, the fear of confronting more of such cases in the towns and areas adjacent to India has come to haunt the country. The three infected Indian nationals, who had reportedly been staying at a Birgunj mosque, hints at another grim aspect: the porous Nepal-India border may pose a threat to the Nepali people because numerous suspected Indians can sneak into the country taking advantage of lax security arrangements at various border points. The three infected Indian nationals were said to have been entered Nepal when the nation is under a complete lockdown.
It may be recalled that a few persons who had recently attended a religious function in India, which turned out to be a coronavirus hot-spot in the Indian capital, were staying at the same Birgunj mosque. These undocumented persons, who apparently slipped into Nepal’s territory dodging the quarantines and other preliminary tests, could have passed the virus to many others. Now, the authority has an uphill task of tracing all those who had come into the contact of these infected persons. Tracing the suspected persons is a necessary process for curbing the infection from the dreaded virus. A report says that a coronavirus infected person can pass the disease to three persons on an average. If he/she remains undetected for long, he may well infect several persons, thus spreading the virus to a large local community.
The tracing of the three Indian nationals at a mosque calls for a strong monitoring and enforcement of strict measures along the Nepal-India border. Becasue the danger posed by undocumented foreign nationals carrying coronavirus to the Nepali people has become all the more glaring now. One can only imagine what our authority would have confronted had the people gathered at many bordering areas trying to come into the country been allowed to come. Taking into account at the perils posed by those coming from abroad, the government has rightly decided not to allow them to get inside the country for some time. In the meantime, after new cases of virus infection among the Indian nationals, the government has stepped up security patrol by mobilising more security personnel at the bordering areas, which is a justified move on the party of the Nepali authority.
It is a fact no one would deny that our government has focused all its attention towards fighting the COVID-19. It has therefore mobilised its resources to an optimum level and spruced up most of hospitals and created new coronavirus centres across the nation. It has also started procuring all necessary equipment for the health workers and health centres by spending billions of rupees. Despite all these, the severity posed by the deadly virus has put our authority on a tenterhook. In such a situation, detection of three more cases of COVID-19 among the undocumented foreigners has sent chill down the spine of the people and the government. After such detection, the government is in an urgent need of undertaking all the required measures to bar the suspected people slinking into the country so that the threats they pose to the Nepali masses can be kept at bay.