Five close associates and aides of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli tested positive for the coronavirus on Saturday.

Oli’s chief adviser Bishnu Rimal, foreign affairs adviser Rajan Bhattarai, press adviser Surya Thapa, chief personal secretary Indra Bhandari and photographer at the prime minister’s private secretariat Rajan Kafle tested positive with the virus.

Rimal, Bhattarai and Thapa announced on Facebook and Twitter that they had tested positive with the virus and asked those whom they had come in contact to take necessary precautions.

Since the job of Rimal, Bhattarai and Thapa is to work closely with Prime Minister Oli who had undergone a second kidney transplant in March, it is said that his health remains fragile and is at risk of developing Covid-19.

But advisers have tried to allay fears of Oli contracting the virus.

“We have maintained distance while meeting the prime minister and we always wear masks,” said Bhattarai.

According to him, the Prime Minister has recently been tested for the infection.

A total of 70 security personnel deployed at the Prime Minister’s residence have also tested positive.

“As per the health protocol, the Prime Minister will isolate himself but he has always maintained the health protocol. But I do not know the latest status,” Bhattarai told the Post.

His press adviser Thapa said that the Prime Minister’s lifestyle is as if he is living in isolation but he might go for testing.

But according to Dr Santa Kumar Das, coordinator of Covid-19 management team at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, the Prime Minister should stay in complete isolation if his advisers and others close to him have tested positive.

“The PM should stay in isolation until his test report comes, “ Das told the Post. “Other people of the PM’s team, who have been exposed with the people tested positive, should also isolate themselves.”

Given the age of Prime Minister Oli and his underlying conditions suffering from diabetes, taking immunosuppressants to prevent kidney rejections and others, he is considered to be in a very high risk group.

Dr Anup Bastola, spokesperson at the Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital however, said that all people having underlying conditions— age, chronic diseases do not get seriously ill with the disease.

“I do not know how much time the PM was exposed with the infected people,” said Bastola, “But unless the test report comes, he should be quarantined.”

Bastola said that severity of the infection varies person to person and it will be wrong to say that the Prime Minister will be serious if tested positive.

Prime Minister’s photographer Kafle had tested positive nine days ago— the day when Oli’s personal physician Dibya Singh Shah was also tested positive for coronavirus.

After Kafle and Shah were found positive in separate tests, PCR tests of more than 165 people including security officers and drivers were conducted on Thursday. Some drivers, including that of press adviser Thapa, tested positive and therefore tests of advisers were conducted on Friday.

“Sometimes I feel like I am dying especially during the nights,” said one of the officers who was tested positive for coronavirus and frequently visits Baluwatar. “Suddenly it becomes difficult to breathe but after some time I feel normal.”

The officer who frequently gets close to the prime minister to perform his duty also said he follows the prescriptions suggested by the Prime Minister— hot turmeric water mixed with several other ingredients like ginger, basil leaves, black pepper.

“Who had imagined the advisers to the prime minister could test positive for the virus given the precautions they take and rarely get close to them,” said the officer. “No one is spared no matter how high their position is.”