Covid19: Nepal Response Situation Report No. XV, as of 13 July, 2020
• The districts with COVID-19 positive cases has now decreased to 72 from 77, with 38 deaths. According to the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP), age group of 91 per cent COVID-19 cases ranged from 11 to 50; 87 per cent cases are men. While the vast majority of cases are among people who have returned from abroad, there is evidence of some secondary community transmission and it may be increasing, according to WHO. (Sitrep #154, 12 July, 2020, MoHP).
• The country lock-down starting on 24 March, 2020, eased from 15 June with limited services open, further extended to 22 July, 2020. The flights are suspended until 21 July, 2020.
• According to the MoHP, there has been a several fold increase in cases of water-borne diseases—diarrhoea, hepatitis A and E and typhoid—and dengue, malaria and scrub typhus in health facilities across the country since the start of monsoon.
• Hundreds of people in Nepal were fined for not wearing mask in the public place, following the Home Ministry’s directive on 6 July, 2020, according to which, law enforcement authorities can nab anyone going out of house without a mask; and will be treated as an offense as per the Infectious Diseases Act, 1964 (News Reports).
• The Government of Nepal (GoN) government on 9 July has decided to let short-route public transportation vehicles ply roads by maintaining needful safety precautions from 10 July 2020. By the ‘short distance’, the GoN meant within Kathmandu valley in the case of Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur as one district and within the given district in the case of other districts.
• The GoN has authorised six private labs to conduct coronavirus tests in the country; out of which four of them are located in the Kathmandu valley whereas other two in Province 5.
Public transporters could take additional 50 per cent charge from the passengers in order to recover their losses caused due to the compulsion to carry passengers half the capacity (Source: Media briefing, GoN).
• The World Health Organisation on 7 July acknowledged “evidence emerging” of the airborne spread of COVID- 19, after the scientists urged the global body to update its guidance on how the respiratory disease passes between people; during its regular news briefing.
• Nepal Ayurved Druggist Association (NADA) handed over various Ayurvedic medicines to the MoHP for distribution in quarantine centres at different places of Nepal (WHO Nepal, Situation Update #12, 7 July 2020).
• In order to maintain uniformity in waste management and to facilitate the management of COVID-19, Interim Guideline on Health Care Waste Management in the context of COVID19 Emergency, 2020 has been issued by the MoHP (WHO Nepal, Situation Update #12, 7 July 2020).
• Monsoon has become active across the country, with at least 89 deaths recorded because of floods and landslides, and 24 deaths because of lightning from 1 June to 13 July, 2020 (Nepal Disaster Risk Reduction Portal, until 13 July 2020, GoN).
• National authorities and the Red Cross are providing the immediate response (initial assessment, search and rescue activities, first aid, evacuation and immediate relief) for the flood and landslide affected (ECHO Daily Flash of 13 July, 2020).
• Women for Human Rights has offered up its office space in 21 districts as quarantine centres. The centre is fully managed by women. Women for Human Rights provides dignity kits to the residents of the quarantine centre through an initiative supported by UNFPA. They also facilitate access to women’s shelter for those who are unable to return home (UN Women).