Migrant misery continues: Bihar worker with COVID-19 symptoms abandoned on Mumbai's Eastern Express Highway, now missing

-

A 24-year-old migrant worker, exhibiting serious COVID-19 symptoms, was found abandoned on the Eastern Express Highway in Maharashtra's Thane on Wednesday. However, Firstpost learnt that a group of activists who rescued him are unable to trace his whereabouts after putting him on an ambulance for Kalwa government hospital.

Sugrim Mahato is a native of Bihar's Saran district had taken the long road home along with several other migrant workers via Mumbai's Eastern Express Highway. He had paid a truck driver to drop him inside the Bihar border, but was abandoned on the roadside after he developed fever and a cough.

Mahato was feverish and dazed when a group of activists found him while distributing food packets and water bottles to migrant workers walking back home.

Dipesh Tank, a Mumbai-based anti-trafficking activist, spotted Mahato lying on a piece of cardboard  by the roadside. When Tank enquired about Mahato's whereabouts, he sounded slightly "dazed and sloshy". Mahato informed Tank that he has fever and wants to go back to his home.

"He appeared a little sloshy when we first found him, and asked if he was drunk. He denied and said he had fever and was out on the roads to reach his home in Bihar. We got a little scared but I helped him out with some cash.. we gave him Rs 1500 and food and we left to help others," Tank told Firstpost. 

However, as Tank was returning after distributing food packets to other migrants, he found Mahato sleeping at the same spot.

"We asked him if he had eaten anything, but he said he was having difficulty swallowing. This is when we decided that we cannot leave him there. I tried to get some medicines from nearby areas and called for an ambulance from the local hospital. But the medicine shops were all closed."

Tank said that he waited for the ambulance to reach and asked the driver to take Mahato to a COVID-19 hospital. However, later when he contacted the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Hospital in Kalwa, he could not get any information about Mahato.

"I just couldn't get the right answers. The hospital told us that no patient under that name had reached the emergency ward," Tank said.

Firstpost's attempts to reach the hospital were also unsuccessful, we will update the story once we find out more details about Mahato's whereabouts.

Tank has been contacted by the Saran and Thane Police and the Kalyan MP, Shrikant Shinde and efforts to trace Mahato are on.

"I feel really helpless right now, and I don't want to leave him like this. I am ready to pay,  if that's required.. But I am scared if he was thrown back on the road, or if he has gone ahead. If they send him back without treatment, I am scared he can infect a lot of other people. He has all the symptoms of coronavirus." Tank said.



from Firstpost India Latest News https://ift.tt/2TaE87k
Ananya Srivastava

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Both COVID-19 vaccine doses needed for good protection against B16172 variant

-
It’s been a concerning few weeks in the UK, with the B16172 variant first taking hold and then spreading to become dominant. This more infectious form of the virus, initially identified in India, is what we’re now going to have to live with – unless it is out-competed by another variant in the future. Worryingly, experts had predicted that B16172 might be able to escape some of the effects of vaccines, which if true would threaten to derail the UK’s plans to finish lifting restrictions from the end of June. However, Public Health England (PHE) has looked at the ability of various variants to evade immunity and says that the UK’s vaccines remain effective against the variants circulating, including B16172. On the surface, this looks like good news. But delve a bit deeper, and things get more complicated, says Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia. PHE’s research found a little drop-off in protection against B16172 among people who were fully vaccinated.
Read more

New coronavirus variant emerge in India: How should our COVID response change?

-
Image
After genome sequencing of over 10,000 COVID-19 cases in India, researchers have discovered a new variant with two new mutations which may be better at evading the immune system. In 15-20 percent of samples from the Indian state of Maharashtra (the state accounting for 62 percent of cases in the country) a new, double mutation in key areas of the virus has been detected. These are now known as the E484Q and L452R mutations. What makes the variant different? Both these mutations are concerning because they are located in a key portion of the virus – the spike protein – that it uses to penetrate human cells. Spike proteins attach via a “receptor binding domain”, meaning the virus can attach to receptors in our cells. These new mutations include changes to the spike protein that make it a “better fit” for human cells. This means the virus can gain entry more easily and multiply faster. Given what we have seen with other similar mutations , it might also make it harder for our immu
Read more

Aditya L1 Mission: Spacecraft is nearing its final phase, says ISRO chief

-
Aditya L1 spacecraft is nearing its final phase, and manoeuvres to enter the L1 point are expected to be completed by January 7, 2024, according to ISRO Chairman S Somanath. “Aditya is on the way. I think it has reached almost its final phase,” the ISRO chief told PTI on the sidelines of an event organised at VSSC to commemorate the 60th year of the First Sounding Rocket Launch. Aditya L1, India’s first space-based mission to study the Sun, was successfully launched on September 2 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota. The spacecraft, after travelling about 1.5 million km from Earth over 125 days, is expected to be placed in a Halo orbit around the Lagrangian point L1, considered closest to the Sun. He said that the last preparations for the spacecraft’s entry into the L1 point are currently underway incrementally.”Possibly by January 7th, the final manoeuvres will be done for entering into the L1 point,” Somanath added. Among other tasks, it will capture and tr
Read more