KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 18
The Ministry of Health and Population has reduced the quarantine and isolation period for COVID patients.
Earlier, the infected persons were required to stay in quarantine or isolation for 14 days. Now they need to stay in quarantine or isolation only for 10 days.
Associate Spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, Samir Kumar Adhikari, said the duration of stay in quarantine, as well as isolation, was reduced after various studies showed that the infection was not transmitted from one person to another after 10 days.
The Policy, Planning and Monitoring Division at the ministry has decided that all the infected persons, except those who fell sick after showing symptoms of the infection and seriously ill people, would be kept in quarantine or isolation only for 10 days.
Similarly, the Health Emergency Operation Centre said people coming from foreign countries would have to mandatorily stay in quarantine or isolation for 10 days. “The centre has issued a notice that persons arriving Nepal from abroad or those coming in contact with the infected persons have to compulsorily stay in quarantine or isolation for at least 10 days,” said the centre chief and associate spokesperson Dr Adhikari.
The Division has urged all hospitals to update the health information management system only on the basis of 10 days’ stay in quarantine or isolation. Chief at the Division Dr Gunaraj Lohani informed that the hospitals would be provided with the amount in compensation accordingly.
“A provision has been made under which renewal of the hospital would not be done if any hospital failed to update the admission and treatment of COV- ID-19 patient in the information system,” he said.
The ministry has also urged the hospitals not to charge any fees from patients against whom compensation amount has been demanded for providing free-of cost treatment. It said the compensatory amount would not be provided to hospitals if they were found to have charged extra fees from such patients.
So far, 444 infected persons are in quarantine and 6,094 persons are in home isolation in Nepal with 251,692 infections, 240,363 recoveries and 1,749 deaths.
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