Virus spreading to Rajshahi villages

The novel coronavirus has begun spreading to villages in Rajshahi district due to unabated cross-district travels and ineffective lockdown measures, health officials and development workers said.

However, the true scenario of the extent of the virus' spread cannot yet be ascertained due to a lack of testing, they added.

Though Rajshahi district was identified as a red zone, suggesting a total lockdown, offices, transports, and markets are still operating under "special measures", locals said.

"We are performing tests on those who have visited coronavirus affected districts and their first and second contacts, and in some cases, tertiary contacts. But even this is not sufficient," Dr Enamul Haque, civil surgeon of Rajshahi, said. "The tests should be random and only then can we get a realistic picture," he said.

According to the health department reports, four people have died in the district till date, three of whom were from outside the city.

Out of the district's 86 infected people, 62 are from its nine upazilas.

In Tanore upazila, out of 13 infected persons, all but three had records of visiting coronavirus-affected districts. Three others were officials of a local police station.

At least 10 persons were identified Covid-19 positive in Puthia upazila while nine were from Mohonpur, seven each from Bagha and Charghat, six each from Paba and Bagmara and one from Godagari upazila.

Jahangir Hossain, project coordinator of DASCOH -- a non-government organisation -- thinks the awareness campaigns launched by different government and NGOs were not coming to any use among villagers.

"Using mask is rare deep inside villages. Maintaining social distance is a far cry too. I saw children preparing dolls with the masks we distributed among their parents to wear," Jahangir, who extensively travels to such villages, said.

Coronavirus spreads in villages in three main ways: when infected workers return home, when workers go to towns to find jobs, and when rural traders visit town markets to buy goods and return home afterwards.

Jahangir said he surveyed at least 500 labourers, who travel to Rajshahi city daily for work, from three villages: Horipur, Deopara and Damkura. Most of them work at construction sites and eat in local hotels.

This daily travel and eating out puts not only the labourers, but also their villages under immense danger of contracting the virus en masse, he added.