Dharamshala: A total of 154 Corona positive cases have been discovered from Gyuto monastery near Dharamshala in the past 8 days, as confirmed by Dr. Gurdarshan Gupta, district’s Chief Medical Officer, Kangra. The area has been declared a containment zone and sealed until further notice, he added.
A cluster case was initially discovered last week where authorities declared 20 cases from the Buddhist establishment. To date, around 330 monks have been tested and 154 have been found to be infected with the virus. The CMO office said last week that the infected monks had no history of travel.
The infected monks, the majority of who are reported to be asymptomatic are being quarantined within the monastery compound.
When contacted DC Kangra Rakesh Prajapati said,” Investigation into the cluster at Gyato Monastery revealed that Incident started after Losar (new year for Tibetan) festival on 14 Feb. About 15 monks came from Karnataka &Delhi. First cases reported on 23rd Feb. Out of 330 tested so far 154 are positive. 29 have been advised to repeat the sample by the lab. Surprisingly all persons coming from outside have been tested negative. Only one patient in moderate category shifted to Tanda Medical College Hospital, rest are being managed in-home isolation at a monastery.”
DC further said that everyone above the age of 60 in the monastery shall be vaccinated.
The Gyuto Tantric Monastery here, an important monastery of the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism where monks from Tibet, Mongolia, Ladakh, Sikkim, and Spiti, are the resident students for Buddhist studies.!
Arvind Sharma is an award winning bi-lingual journalist with more than 20 years of experience.
He has worked with Divya Himachal, Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhasker, Vir Partap, Ajit and PTI.
In 2010, he was conferred the Himachal Kesri journalism award. He reports on the Tibetan Government in Exile, politics, sports, tourism and other topics. He lives in Dharamshala.
