Banke District Officer, Army Colonel manage final rites of COVID-19 victim

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NEPALGUNJ: The Chief District Officer along with the Colonel of Nepal Army managed the last rites of a Covid-19 victim, a woman who was detected with the virus post demise in Banke.

Banke CDO Ram Bahadur Kurumwang and Colonel Nakul Thapa of Bhairav Prasad Batallion attended the final rites of the woman, NA personnel had performed which, on Thursday.

On refusal of the ambulance drivers, NA personnel had transported the body to Dhakeri Forest and buried it following safety protocol.

Earlier, locals of Baijanath Municipality had protested after the body of another coronavirus victim was buried in the banks of Mankhola in Bardiya. Authorities were struggling to find a space to bury the body.

“We attended the funeral of the woman in an attempt to remove the stigma and fear among the people, so that due empathy is shown during the management of the covid patients’ bodies,” informed CDO Kurumwang. It has been noted many a times that there is a growing stigma surrounding the coronavirus infection in the country, the authorities have been constantly raising awareness on which.

“I was going to drive the vehicle myself if the driver had rejected to do so,’ he added.

On failing to find an ambulance, authorities had procured a pick up of a staffer from the Medical College.

The 43-year-old woman from Lamkichuha-2 in Kailali district had passed away while undergoing treatment at Nepalgunj Medical College in Kohalpur. She was severely injured in the head on June 14 and was taken there for treatment. Her swab specimen was collected on June 16, before her surgery, to test for Covid-19.

The results came out the next day in which the woman had tested positive for the infection, but she was no more by that time.

Nepal reported 671 new cases of the coronavirus infection on Thursday. With this, the nationwide tally of COVID-19 stands at 7,848.