Eight more people tested positive on Tuesday in Hirpora village of this south Kashmir district which has emerged as one of the COVID19 hotspots in the valley.
This has taken the number of infected patients in this smallvillage with barely 1000 households to 20.
A health official said all the cases are contacts of theearlier positive cases.
“The family members and the close contacts of the positivecases have already been isolated and put in quarantine centers,” an officialsaid. He said aggressive testing was on in the village.
The first corona case from this village was reported onApril 8.
The patient had returned from Maharashtra days before thelockdown. In the next few days, the cases started to rise, posing yet anotherchallenge for the administration that is already battling the corona pandemicin several other parts of Jammu and Kashmir. The village is a designated redzone, completely sealed and restrictions have been intensified. Medics believethat mass screening of the village was the only option now. “As the communitytransmission here has already happened, so better would be to go for massscreening of the population,” said a doctor who is part of the team monitoringthe situation in this small hamlet. Another hotspot, Bemnipora village in thesame district, also got two fresh positive cases today, all contacts ofprevious ones.