The ministry of health in Nepal has informed that 16 new cases have been registered in the country. Out of the 16 cases, 15 are the contacts of Tablighi jamaat member who is a religious leader and returned from the Markaz event in Delhi. As per reports, they have been quarantined.
All of them were reported positive on Sunday. With these 16 new cases, the number of coronavirus cases in Nepal has risen to 75. The Ministry said on Sunday that 15 out of 16 patients were already quarantined. All of them came in contact with a Muslim cleric who had returned to Nepal after attending the Nizamuddin Markaz event of Tablighi Jamaat in Delhi in March and was later found infected with the coronavirus. Of these 15 people, there are 8 males and 7 females. They all belong to the Nepalgunj region of western Nepal, and one of them is a 7-year-old child. All 15 were asymptomatic, and they are either family members or relatives of the person who had attended the Tablighi Jamaat.
Other than them, a 36-year-old man from Parsa also tested positive for COVId-19 after his swab was tested in the National Public Health Laboratory, Kathmandu on Sunday.
Tablighi Jamaat, a super spreader
It is imperative to say that Tablighi jamaat has played a crucial in giving rise to coronavirus cases in India and also in Pakistan, Malaysia, and Brunei. In March 2020, thousands of people gathered in the Nizamuddin Markaz event in South Delhi. Afterward, an explosive rise in coronavirus cases was witnessed from across the country.
Like India, Tablighi Jamaat attendees were found hiding in mosques in Nepal to evade quarantine. Last month, 12 such persons were found hiding in a mosque in Kathmandu, and later all of them had tested positive for Coronavirus.
The role of Tablighi Jamaat in the spreading of the Wuhan Coronavirus across numerous states of India had come to light when 10 people who had attended the congregation at Markaz Nizamuddin died of COVID-19. Muslim clerics of Tablighi Jamaat organized a congregation in violation of the government’s lockdown orders, providing a conducive environment for the novel coronavirus to proliferate.
