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To keep watch on international travellers, health dept sets up Covid naka near Ludhiana’s Ladhowal toll plaza
Instead of khakhi-clad cops, commuters, especially those in taxis, are being stopped at the naka by health department workers donning PPE kits for RT-PCR testing.
While the country races to control the new Covid-19 strain, the health department here has set up a “Covid-19 naka” at a bridge over Sutlej river near Ladhowal toll plaza to detect incoming infected travellers.
Located on National Highway-1, the stretch connects the district to Phagwara and further to Jalandhar and Amritsar, which receives international and domestic travellers at the Sri Guru Ram Das Ji International Airport.
Instead of khakhi-clad cops, commuters, especially those in taxis, are being stopped at the naka by health department workers donning PPE kits for RT-PCR testing.
Besides sampling people arriving in commercial vehicles from other states, the team is eyeing taxis and auto-rickshaws ferrying international travellers.
The district has so far recorded 24,916 Covid cases, highest in Punjab, of which 969 people have died. With January expected to see the arrival of more international travellers and migrant workers, the health department is on its toes to check another spike in infections, as seen in September last year.
Dr Kuldeep Kumar, who is supervising the sampling process, said, “We collect nearly 300 samples daily for RT-PCR tests, mostly of auto-rickshaw drivers and their passengers. Besides, we also look for foreign travellers who are in taxis. Besides sampling them, we collect their address details, so that they can be traced and quarantined if found positive.”
Stating that most of the people tested were usually asymptomatic, he said the number of positive cases daily varied, with one day even detecting 30 positive cases and others none at all.
Neeraj Kohli, who was travelling to Jalandhar, appreciated the move. “It is a great initiative. Normally, only a person with symptoms visits the hospital for testing, while asymptotic people roam around carefree. It also saves travellers’ time as they don’t have to visit the hospital for testing.”
Recently, Punjab health minister Balbir Singh Sidhu had stated that samples of all people, including farmers returning from the agitation at Singhu border, will be collected.
Since the new strain was reported in the UK, so far, 18 people have returned to the district from there. Out of those, 16 have tested negative, while a positive patient, a female from Amritsar, was admitted at the civil hospital and later found negative for the new strain. Another positive patient had shifted to Uttar Pradesh.
Suspended since December 22, flights to and from the UK will resume at the airports in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Mumbai on January 8.