Trade gates monitored closely to prevent COVID-19 spread in Arakan State: military council

By DMG 16 Jun 2021

DMG Newsroom
16 June 2021, Sittwe 

Border trade gates are being systematically managed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Arakan State, according to U Hla Thein, information officer for the Arakan State military council. 

People returning from Bangladesh have been tested in line with COVID-19 restrictions at border trade gates in Maungdaw and at Sittwe’s Shwe Min Gan port, U Hla Thein said. 

“As water routes have been used in border trading, people returning from Bangladesh via the water routes have to quarantine for 10 days before they land,” he said. “COVID-19 testing is conducted for returnees during these 10 days by taking nasal swab samples. Because we’re worried that they would [not comply with the quarantine period], we’re managing police outposts systematically to watch them.” 

U Kan Tun Aung, the Maungdaw Township administrator, told DMG that since two out of 19 Muslims who returned to Maungdaw Township from Bangladesh on June 10 and 11 tested positive for COVID-19, security restrictions had been tightened. 

“The border guard police force has carried out security at the border area. Those who enter sneakily are quarantined and tested in the town. Currently, there are only two positive cases,” he said. 

Some civil society organisations have urged that Arakan State’s border trade gates be shut down as more than a dozen COVID-19 cases have been reported in Sittwe and Maungdaw since last month. 

“There was the experience of COVID-19 infections under the previous government. If there is an infection, the process [of containment] is very expensive and complicated. The situation will be worse if there is an infection amid this political instability. In my opinion, the border trade should be temporarily shut down,” U Zaw Zaw Tun, secretary of the Rakhine Ethnics Congress, previously told DMG. 

U Hla Thein has said there is no plan to suspend border gate activities despite the rising COVID-19 case count, adding that quarantine centres in Sittwe have not been reopened for now, but an old Sittwe University building has been prepared for such a purpose if infection numbers rise to a level where it is deemed necessary. 

Those patients who have tested positive for the virus over recent weeks are in good condition, Dr. Soe Win Paing, assistant director of the Arakan State Public Health Department, told DMG.