J-K records 4th death as woman dies in Udhampur

Deepanker Gupta

Udhampur, April 9

Following the death of the 63-year-old woman from Tikri area of Udhampur district, the first casualty in Jammu division due to coronavirus, the authorities have intensified the contact tracing of the woman’s family.

Authorities, in order to contain the spread of the disease, have suspended the emergency services of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Narayana Super Specialty Hospital, Kakryal in Katra, where the woman was first shifted following chest congestion and other problems.

Over a dozen staff members of Narayana hospital, including two doctors and paramedics, who came in contact with the patient, have been shifted to a quarantine centre.

The curve of Covid-19-infected persons has risen sharply in the past one week as over 100 people have tested positive in the Union Territory in the period. So far, four deaths have been reported in Jammu and Kashmir.

Sources said the bed-ridden woman, who was symptomatic of Covid-19, was shifted to Government Medical College (GMC) Jammu, the dedicated Covid hospital in the region, for sample testing from Narayana hospital, where she breathed her last.

“The woman was not given Critical Care Ambulance and the family brought her to the GMC Jammu in a private car. She tested positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday night. The woman had no travel history.

In the contact tracing process, it came to fore that her son is a PSO with a retired DIG-ranked police officer in Bathindi area where containment operations were already intensified,” sources said.

“There is strong possibility that the son of the deceased might have come in contact with an infected person in Jammu that led to transmission of the coronavirus,” sources said.

Meanwhile, the administration has shifted the family to a quarantine.