Four returnees at Sittwe border trade camp test positive for COVID-19

By DMG 12 May 2021

DMG Newsroom
12 May 2021, Sittwe 

Four out of 40 returnees from Bangladesh have tested positive for coronavirus at the Shwe Mingan border trade camp in Sittwe Township, according to the Arakan State Department of Public Health. 

“Four out of 40 people from four cargo ships were infected with the virus and they will be treated at the hospital,” said Dr. Soe Win Paing, assistant director of the Arakan State DPH. “The ships were not allowed to dock at the jetty and all people on board were quarantined. The infected people are Arakanese sailors returning from Bangladesh.” 

Swab samples were taken from the returnees for medical examination on May 11. Because the border camp is a legal trade conduit, foreign entrants must report to the health department before disembarking and must quarantine in a restricted area to undergo medical examination. 

At present, checkpoints are still being closely monitored to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Arakan State, said Dr. Soe Win Paing. 

“The community also informs us if there are any illegal entrants in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships. If we are informed, we take swab samples from the entrants and place them under observation. If someone is infected with the virus, we conduct the contact-tracing process. However, the social nature of the virus does not preclude the spread of the virus,” he explained. 

Some local civil society groups have called for the closure of border trade gates for fear of the virus spreading due to the transnational movement of goods and people. 

Sittwe border trade was indefinitely suspended after a passenger on a commercial boat arriving in the Arakan State capital tested positive for COVID-19 in June 2020, but was allowed to resume last month. 

With alarming rates of coronavirus infection and related fatalities in neighbouring India and Bangladesh over recent weeks, locals in Arakan State are eyeing cross-border commerce warily.  

“If there is [a COVID-19 outbreak], the process [of containment] is complicated and the expenditure is so high. The situation will be worse if there is an infection amid this political instability,” the secretary of the Rakhine Ethnics Congress, Ko Zaw Zaw Tun, told DMG last week.