World Health Organisations officials praised Indian efforts and said India has tremendous capacity in eradicating coronavirus pandemic.

The executive director WHO, Michael Ryan said, India the world’s second most populous country, has a tremendous capacity to deal with the coronavirus outbreak as it has the experience of leading the world in eradicating the small-pox and polio through targeted public intervention. This can be believed by looking at the number of coronavirus cases so far.

By Tuesday morning there were 492 confirmed cases and nine deaths reported across the country of 1.3 billion people.
Government officials from across departments are working day and night in isolating suspected cases rigorously.

Jai Kumar Sharma with the Dwarka health department team.

We were with the health department team at midnight in Dwarka, (South West Delhi), one of the biggest residential localities in Asia with a population of 800,000 people.

Suspected cases and foreign travellers are being tracked, screened and sent to home-quarantine for 14 days initially. We interacted with Rahul Singh who is the district magistrate of South West Delhi and leading the operations in one of the biggest residential areas in the country.

He said that the administration is not only identifying suspected cases, but taking care of their emotions too by providing them timely help if needed during the quarantine period. These residents are not even allowed to dispose their garbage in the common garbage chutes, health official are collecting garbage from their doorsteps in special bags/containers and disposing off under supervision of medical teams.

More areas of India came under lockdown till March 31st, whereas curfew is imposed in the states of Maharashtra and Punjab as the battle entered the decisive phase.

In unprecedented scenes, last Sunday, people across India came out on their balconies and clapped, rang bells, blew the conch shells and beat metal plates to show their gratitude to doctors, health workers, police, government officials, essential service providers and everyone who is fighting war against Coronavirus for 1.3 billion people.

Fiji Sun received video from one of the housing complex, DJA Apartment in Dwarka, New Delhi, where people were showing their gratitude on the request of their Prime Minster, Narender Modi. PM Modi in his address to the nation had called health service providers as warriors and asked the people of India to thank them at 5pm last Sunday by stepping out on their balcony and clap their hands.

India so far miraculously contained the killer virus but second most populous country is now passing through the decisive third stage and everyone across the world is crossing fingers.

* Jai Kumar Sharma is Fiji Sun’s consultant editor. He was with one of the health teams post-midnight on Monday and witnessed how serious the Indian government is fighting the war against COVID-19.