Ministry calls for reasoned expressions on COVID-19

30 March, Kathmandu : The Ministry of Health and Population has urged the media outlets and social networking sites users for their reasoned expressions in regard to COVID-19.

In a regular news conference at the Ministry on Monday, the officials said that groundless expressions have helped spread negative message among the public. On the occasion, Health and Population Minister Bhanu Bhakta Dhakal’s health specialist Dr Khem Karki said that health workers and different individuals are urged not to make their personal opinions on this issue as such expressions have created false impressions on commoners.

Likewise, he urged the media outlets not to disseminate news in a sense that deaths caused by other reasons were also the result of COVID-19. “No one has died of coronavirus in Nepal so far. The situation of those infected is normal,” Dr Karki said. Saying that the infection of COVID-19 has not spread in Nepal like other countries, he added that the coronavirus pneumonia would not spread further if foreign returnees were kept in home quarantines with proper love and care.

During the press meet, Ministry’s Spokesperson Dr Bikas Devkota said that family members of those COVID-19 infected persons were tested negative for COVID-19 during the testing and they are kept under ‘contact tracing’. So far, five individuals have tested positive for COVID-19 and reports of 78 others are awaited out of 993 persons’ tests, Dr Devkota shared.

As of today, seven persons are kept in isolation in different hospitals in the capital city and 93 others are in the hospitals in all seven states, Dr Devkota added. Furthermore, the Spokesperson said that tests of COVID-19 were conducted for three persons who died in Patan Hospital and Bir Hospital but their reports have not been received yet.