Ineffective tracing of contacts of people infected with Covid-19 has heightened the risk of community transmission of coronavirus in Karnali Province.

Officials say they are busy with administrative work at the end of the fiscal year and don’t have the human resources to track people in remote areas of the country.

“We were caught up in administrative work at the end of the fiscal year,” said Birsha Bahadur Shahi, chief at provincial health emergency operation centre which has been assigned by the provincial government to carry out contact tracing. “We tested some people who had come in contact with the infected. But we couldn’t expand our reach to remote areas as we don’t have the human resources to do it,” said Shahi.

With the limited contact tracing, it is getting challenging to stop community transmission in Karnali as local representatives, politicians, health workers and even musicians involved in managing quarantines have tested positive for the disease.

Last Friday, a member of the Karnali Provincial Assembly called a press conference in Birendranagar, which was attended by several lawmakers and mediapersons. The provincial assembly member tested positive for the virus on Monday.

“I was in a meeting with him (the infected province assembly member) the previous evening and then he was in a room full of people the next day,” said Dal Rawal, Minister for Social Development, Karnali Province. “We have collected swabs of other provincial assembly members, employees of the assembly secretariat, employees of his secretariat in the first phase. But we have been unable to trace everyone who had attended the meet.”

A deputy mayor of a town in Dailekh is now in isolation at Karnali Provincial Hospital, Surkhet, after she developed symptoms for Covid-19. But the District Public Health Office hasn’t tested other people who may have come in contact with her outside of her household.

Thir Prasad Regmi, focal person at the health office, said a health worker staying at the deputy mayor’s house tested positive for coronavirus last week. “We are yet to trace her contacts,” he said.

A six-member band that organised a series of musical programmes at several quarantines and isolation facilities in the province was also found to have been infected with the disease.

“We visited various quarantine facilities and performed concerts in the last few months. We were also involved in other social campaigns. We don’t know when we caught the virus,” said a member of the band who has been in self-isolation since her test results came positive.

A senior doctor at the provincial hospital also tested positive for coronavirus in June. The doctor, who also works at a private hospital in Surkhet, generally examines 50 patients per day at his private clinic. “I am very worried about a possible transmission of the disease from him (the doctor),” said a woman from Birendranagar who had visited the doctor three days before he tested positive.

According to the Ministry of Social Development, of the 1,727 people infected with the virus in Karnali Province, six have died and 232 are still in isolation wards, as of Friday.

Contact tracing has also taken a backseat in Birendranagar, the provincial headquarters, where public movement has increased after the relaxation of the lockdown. About 10 days ago, a service seeker who visited the District Drinking Water and Sanitation Office, tested positive for the virus.

While there, the infected man had met office employees. “We informed the centre after we came to know that the man tested positive. Later, we filed an application requesting contact tracing, but a team from the tracing centre was dispatched only after four days,” said Sushil KC, an account officer at the office.