Persons under quarantine at designated centres will get all medical and social care. This was decided on Monday after the government framed standard operation procedure (SOP) for quarantine homes. As many as 64 quarantine homes have been designated in Srinagar with capacity to accommodate 10,000 people.
The quarantine and the isolation are the legal ways toimplement measures to prevent spread of any infection or communicable disease.It applies to an infected person or person exposed to such infection.
As per the SOP, persons under quarantine will be serveddisposable and pre-packed hygienic food. This is to ensure that they don’t getinfection from each other, if any. Further, portable water will be provided in separate bottles to each person.
Each quarantined person will be kept on separate bed at adistance of two meters from another bed, with no bed facing opposite to eachother, the rules provide.
All beds, as per SOP, shall be having bed sheets and pillowcovers that should be changed on every other day.
“A separate room will be assigned to perform laundryservices for cleaning all the clothes and other washing related activities.Before laundering, all the washable items need to be placed in one percenthypochlorite up to 30 minutes and later washed in detergent solution,” itreads. Each hall can contain persons not exceeding ten, depending onavailability.
The SOP, framed after consultation and recommendation madeby experts, has taken due care that any waste or disposal generated doesn’t goout. The waste generated, in any form, will be collected, packed, transportedand deposed under scientific ways.
What is quarantine?
Quarantine is a compulsoryprocess that includes the restriction of movement of person who has potentialto a contiguous disease until it can be determined that the person hasrecovered or is not suffering from such disease.
Persons who have travel history are quarantined. Out ofthem, those coming from infection affected countries but not having symptoms,go to non-hospital quarantine while as the person with symptoms go to hospitalquarantine. Some are also asked to remain under home quarantine, depending onhealth conditions.
Why these measures:
The measures are taken by government in public interest asit is primarily responsibility of authorities to maintain general public healthand control the spread of disease in community.
COVID-19 spreads when a person comes in contact of theinfected person. Thus, the cases of infected persons go in multiplication ifthe chain of transmission is not broken.
The coronavirus or COVID-19 is a large family of virusesthat cause illness ranging from the common cold to acute respiratory syndromes,but the current virus is a novel strain not seen before.
Quarantined period:
Persons returning fromaboard, especially coronavirus affected countries are quarantined for 14 daysby the authorities. Fourteen days quarantine period is to see if a persondevelops a disease, or earlier if a suspect case turns out negative onlaboratory testing. This move is highly recommended by international healthorganizations.
The authorities derive their powers from Disaster ManagementAct to enforce these laws.
Official speaks:
Deputy Commissioner Srinagar Shahid Iqbal Choudhary saidthere are 64 quarantine centres in Srinagar. “Out of them, 27 are functionaland rest are on standby mode,” he said.
Confirming the set of rules for quarantine homes, he saidpersons under quarantine are being provided best facilities.
He informed that in Srinagar 1555 persons are underquarantine at designated homes and 1206 are under home quarantine.
He reiterated his appeal to people asking them not to panicbut follow health advisories and other precautionary measures in letter andspirit.