Posted on Jun 5, 2021
From Remote Villages To Mt. Everest Base Camp, COVID Hits Nepal Hard
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When health workers finally arrived last month in the remote village of Namanta, up in the forested foothills of Nepal's Himalayas, residents hid in their homes.
They'd been advised not to welcome strangers, who might spread the coronavirus. But it was already too late. Out of 64 households in the village, 30 of them had someone who was ill.
Those individuals hadn't been able to get tested though: The nearest coronavirus testing facility was a 3-hour walk away. Nobody who was sick could make it that far.
So as residents huddled in their homes, many of them coughing, they were frightened by the surprise arrival of strangers in surgical masks. One villager made a phone call.
"They called us and said, 'There are these new people in town. They say they're here to help. What should we do?'" recalls Srijana Karki, the South Asia regional director for World Neighbors, a development charity based in Oklahoma.
They'd been advised not to welcome strangers, who might spread the coronavirus. But it was already too late. Out of 64 households in the village, 30 of them had someone who was ill.
Those individuals hadn't been able to get tested though: The nearest coronavirus testing facility was a 3-hour walk away. Nobody who was sick could make it that far.
So as residents huddled in their homes, many of them coughing, they were frightened by the surprise arrival of strangers in surgical masks. One villager made a phone call.
"They called us and said, 'There are these new people in town. They say they're here to help. What should we do?'" recalls Srijana Karki, the South Asia regional director for World Neighbors, a development charity based in Oklahoma.
From Remote Villages To Mt. Everest Base Camp, COVID Hits Nepal Hard
Posted from npr.org
Nepal
Health
Posted 3 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
Namanta is one of dozens of communities across Nepal – many of them high in rugged mountain terrain — where Karki and her colleagues run workshops teaching villagers how to farm their land sustainably, care for livestock and manage natural resources better.
The health workers who arrived in May had been dispatched by World Neighbors. The group's in-person workshops were on hold because of the pandemic, but Karki's staff stayed in touch with residents by phone and had heard reports of illnesses. She knew the village had no hospital or clinic. So she arranged for four health workers to visit the community to test people for the coronavirus and provide medical support.
When the team arrived, it was one of Karki's colleagues, Binu Subedi, who received the call from a frightened villager. Subedi, who is based in a larger town downhill from Namanta, asked them to put her on speaker phone and go house to house – keeping a distance, just standing in the doorways – and hold out the phone to neighbors inside so they could hear her.
"At first they refused to come out of their homes, but I told them to maintain a safe distance and tell the doctors all the health issues they are facing," Subedi recalls. "Eventually they came out one by one and underwent testing."
This is an example of the challenges and lengths caregivers must go to in battling one of the world's most severe COVID-19 outbreaks in this landlocked, mountainous and impoverished country of about 28 million people, wedged between India and China. The World Bank estimates that about a third of Nepalis live close to the poverty line.
The pandemic is collapsing their already meager health system.
Millions Cross the India-Nepal Border, Some Carrying the Coronavirus
Nepal has been hit in recent months by the same COVID-19 outbreak that's raging in neighboring India. The country's Health Ministry says 97-percent of the cases it has sent for genomic sequencing reveal the B.1.617 variant first discovered in India.
The two countries are close physically and culturally. They both have Hindu majorities and share a porous 1,100-mile border. Millions of Nepalis work in India, and many of them traveled home to Nepal this spring, fleeing municipal lockdown restrictions during India's own COVID crisis. Remittances from abroad have slowed.
As Nepal struggles with the disease, there are also worries about a backlash: Dr. Lhamo Yangchen Sherpa, an epidemiologist based in Kathmandu, says migrant workers are being unfairly scapegoated for the virus. They're often among society's most vulnerable and poor already.
Namanta is one of dozens of communities across Nepal – many of them high in rugged mountain terrain — where Karki and her colleagues run workshops teaching villagers how to farm their land sustainably, care for livestock and manage natural resources better.
The health workers who arrived in May had been dispatched by World Neighbors. The group's in-person workshops were on hold because of the pandemic, but Karki's staff stayed in touch with residents by phone and had heard reports of illnesses. She knew the village had no hospital or clinic. So she arranged for four health workers to visit the community to test people for the coronavirus and provide medical support.
When the team arrived, it was one of Karki's colleagues, Binu Subedi, who received the call from a frightened villager. Subedi, who is based in a larger town downhill from Namanta, asked them to put her on speaker phone and go house to house – keeping a distance, just standing in the doorways – and hold out the phone to neighbors inside so they could hear her.
"At first they refused to come out of their homes, but I told them to maintain a safe distance and tell the doctors all the health issues they are facing," Subedi recalls. "Eventually they came out one by one and underwent testing."
This is an example of the challenges and lengths caregivers must go to in battling one of the world's most severe COVID-19 outbreaks in this landlocked, mountainous and impoverished country of about 28 million people, wedged between India and China. The World Bank estimates that about a third of Nepalis live close to the poverty line.
The pandemic is collapsing their already meager health system.
Millions Cross the India-Nepal Border, Some Carrying the Coronavirus
Nepal has been hit in recent months by the same COVID-19 outbreak that's raging in neighboring India. The country's Health Ministry says 97-percent of the cases it has sent for genomic sequencing reveal the B.1.617 variant first discovered in India.
The two countries are close physically and culturally. They both have Hindu majorities and share a porous 1,100-mile border. Millions of Nepalis work in India, and many of them traveled home to Nepal this spring, fleeing municipal lockdown restrictions during India's own COVID crisis. Remittances from abroad have slowed.
As Nepal struggles with the disease, there are also worries about a backlash: Dr. Lhamo Yangchen Sherpa, an epidemiologist based in Kathmandu, says migrant workers are being unfairly scapegoated for the virus. They're often among society's most vulnerable and poor already.
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