COVID-19 spread among the Assam tea workers alarming, NETA writes for urgent vaccination

GUWAHATI: Sunil Jallan, chairman of North East Tea Association (NETA), has written a letter to Samir Sinha, Principal secretary of health in Assam, requesting him to set up vaccination camps in tea gardens urgently as the COVID-19 virus is spreading among the tea garden workers like wildlife.

As many as four tea estates of Assam have been shut down and declared containment zone after the surge in COVID-19 positive cases among the tea workers and staffs.

These four tea estates are as follows -- Zaloni and Mayajan in Dibrugarh, Nilpur in Biswanath and Borsapori in Golagaghat district of Assam.

The district administrations are worried as the situation might get grim among the tea laborers who are traditionally anemic and their immunity system is not very strong either.

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In Zaloni tea estate situation is already worse. When tests were being conducted there, the first day it had reported 39 positive cases, 90 on the second day, and more than 50 on the third day.

A serosurvey said that most of the people were not infected during the first wave as an official informed.

50 beneficiaries have been vaccinated on May 5 in Zaloni Tea estates as per official records.

In the past 5 days, the Nilpur tea estate reported almost 50 cases. the infected patients were kept in isolation and most of them are reportedly asymptomatic.

The workers of tea gardens reside in very close proximity, which increases the chances of spreading the virus among the workers very quickly. Fearing the same several tea-based organizations were demanding immediate vaccination in the tea gardens.

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