Assam, May 7: After a rapid rise in Covid-19 cases in the tea estates, the district administration in Assam’s Dibrugarh and Biswanath have been forced to declare two tea gardens as containment zones.
At Zaloni tea garden in upper Assam’s Dibrugarh, 143 workers and staff members tested positive for Covid-19. The district administration shut down the tea garden and declared it a containment zone.
According to a top official in the district administration, contact tracing, and testing are underway and positive cases may increase in the tea garden over the next few days.
Officials from Tengakhat’s revenue circle office and health department as well as the medical inspector of the plantations have all rushed to the garden to take stock of the situation.
A hospital and two staff quarters of the tea garden have been turned into temporary isolation centres for the Covid-19 patients in the area.
Pallav Gopal Jha, the Dibrugarh district deputy commissioner, told India Today that 39 Covid cases were detected at Zaloni tea estate on May 3. Following that, another 42 cases were detected on May 4 and 52 on May 5.
According to circle officer Priyanka Gogoi, another 10 cases were detected on May 6.
“We have started a vaccination drive at the tea estate. On May 5, 50 beneficiaries were vaccinated. More testing will be conducted in the next few days. Apart from the Zaloni tea estate, vaccination is going on regularly at other estates also. Our target is to cover 21 tea estates in the district per day from next Sunday onwards,” said Jha.
Also Read: Assam: Zaloni tea estate declared Containment Zone after 90 workers test positive
Earlier on Tuesday, the Tengakhat circle officer had issued an order directing the manager of Zaloni tea estate to stop all activities in the garden.
The Biswanath district administration on Thursday sealed Nilpur tea estate and declared it a containment zone after 42 workers and staff members of the tea garden tested positive for Covid-19.
Meanwhile, the district administrations of both Dibrugarh and Biswanath have started vaccination drives in their tea garden areas.
On Wednesday, Assam reported 55 deaths and 4826 new Covid-19 cases in 24 hours. The positivity rate was 9.27 per cent.
