Public health experts have called on the government to allow Nepalis stranded in foreign lands to return home as measures enforced by the government have not only failed to contain the spread of Covid-19, but also failed to prevent people from entering the country from India.

Contact tracing of the infected people will be difficult and chances of the disease spreading in the community will be amplified if people continue to enter the country through the porous border illegally, they said.

"New infections should have stopped long ago, if restricting people from coming home did the trick," Dr Baburam Marasini, former director at the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division, told the Post. "People will be compelled to use illegal channels if we prevent them from entering the country for a long time. This has been seen in various parts of the country."

With the reporting of three new cases in the country on Wednesday, the number of people infected with Covid-19 has reached 57, out of which 55 were detected after the lockdown started. Despite the nationwide lockdown, which began on March 24, people are crossing the open Indo-Nepal border by evading security patrols.

"I don't know who gave the ideas to the government to stop its own citizen from coming home," Marasini added, "It would be easier to trace the contacts of infected people and control the disease from spreading in the community if we let people come home legally, and document quarantine them."

Covid-19 cases have been exponentially rising in India and chances that cases will be imported from India will remain high unless the disease is eradicated in the southern neighbour, say experts. Preventing people from entering their own country and compelling them to live in unmanaged quarantine in a foreign country where the number of cases has been rising is not advisable, they add.

Such conditions will also take a toll on their physical and mental health, says an official from the ministry of health. "If we do stop people from entering the country and force them to live in foreign lands in inhumane conditions,their physical, as well as mental health will deteriorate," an official at the Health Ministry, told the Post. "The government should also start bringing people home from countries other than India as many have lost their jobs and are in trouble."

The risk of infection spreading from foreign returnees can be mitigated by keeping then in quarantine and recording their details, he said.

Dr Sher Bahadur Pun, a virologist at Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital in Teku, said that allowing people to enter the country was one of the major challenges authorities faced. "New infections will not stop even after the lockdown ends,"Pun told the Post. "It will be easier to monitor documented people than those entering the country illegally."

Several mechanisms— female community health volunteers, mother's group, clubs, area development committees, local administrations can be used to monitor the movement of people returning from abroad, said Dr Pun.

Dr Basudev Pandey, director at the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division also concedes that people who have entered Nepal illegally after the lockdown pose a challenge when tracing the contacts of infected people. "Due to fear of punishment, people lie about the date of their return from India and that of those who came in their close contact," said Dr Pandey.

Dr Pun, however, cautioned against allowing everyone stranded abroad to return home all at once after the lockdown is lifted as tracking their movement will become more challenging.