Only 82 new cases of the novel coronavirus were detected across the country yesterday, the second consecutive day of a sudden drop below 100.
Till Friday, Nepal had been witnessing triple-digit overnight spike in COVID-19 cases since May 27.
Testing should be increased to confirm whether the number of infections has actually declined or not, according to the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division (EDCD) under the Department of Health Services.
Meanwhile, the government has decided to collect 45,000 random samples from across the country to find out if there was community spread. About 5,000 such samples are being collected from office goers as well as healthcare workers of Kathmandu.
Among the 3,000 samples already collected and tested in Kathmandu, the test result 1,621 samples have arrived and three have tested positive.
The three people who tested positive for COVID-19 do not have any travel history or any known COVID patient among their near and dear ones.
“We are trying to trace the source of infections. Nonetheless, testing must be expanded, besides making contact tracing more effective,” said EDCD Director Basudev Pandey.
He also expressed surprise towards the government’s such move saying community transfer could be suspected if COVID-19 positive cases were increasing exponentially, not when the numbers were declining.
He informed that samples will also be collected from COVID hotspots, such as Rautahat, Palpa and Dadeldura to determine if community transmission had taken place.
As of yet, 16,801 people have tested COVID-19 positive in Nepal, 8,589 of them have recovered and 38 COVID patients have succumbed to the disease.
