Covid 19: Baba Amte's Anandwan ashram declared containment zone

Around 100 to 150 people in Anandwan were being tested every day since March first week, said a district official.

The Chandrapur administration in Maharashtra has declared Anandwan ashram – a special facility for leprosy patients set up by Baba Amte in district’s Warora tehsil – a containment zone, following a sudden spike in Coronavirus cases.

Anandwan inmates are specially vulnerable to Covid-19 infection as they follow community living, said an official. (sourced photo)

With a majority of Anandwan inmates being senior citizens with comorbidities, the administration has established a special Covid care centre on the ashram premises. There are presently about 1,500 inmates at the ashram.

251 ashram inmates, among the 1,317 tested, were found Covid-positive over the last one week. “We had set up a special auxiliary RT-PCR testing centre in Anandwan earlier this month given the presence of a highly vulnerable population there. Soon, it turned out that a good number of people among the inmates were positive and the entire Anandwan was sealed and declared a containment zone,” said Warora tehsildar Prashant Bedse. He said that a total of 251 positive cases were detected in Anandwan and all are undergoing treatment.

Bedse claimed that those found negative are being taken in special buses to Warora sub-district hospital for vaccination and 130 inmates have been given the first dose of vaccine.

In 1949, Baba Amte founded Anandwan in Chandrapur district, some 125 kms from Nagpur. The ashram is dedicated to treatment, rehabilitation, and empowerment of leprosy patients. The centre runs programs in health care, agriculture, small-scale industry, and conservation to serve people with disabilities.

Meanwhile, Covid-19 cases are also increasing sharply in Nagpur. As many as 1,710 new cases were detected on Wednesday, while eight people died of the deadly virus in the last 24 hours in the district, said Ravindra Thakre, the district collector of Nagpur.