(TibetanReview.net, Aug08’22) – After reporting no new confirmed or suspected Covid-19 cases for 920 days, Chinese ruled Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) reported four positive cases on Aug 7, according to China’s official chinadaily.com.cn Aug 8. Until then, the only case detected in TAR was in late Jan 2020 in a Chinese traveller from Hubei Province, China.
Four people tested positive during a regular nucleic acid tests in Burang County in Ngari prefecture of TAR, the report said, citing a statement issued by the prefecture’s health authorities Aug 7.
The report said the four cases, all diagnosed as asymptomatic carriers, were detected among tourists from outside the county.
Three are from the Samdrubtse district of the region’s Shigatse city and one is from Dingri county of Shigatse, the report said.
They were aged between 47 and 61, reported the bloomberg.com Aug 8.
Following the detection of the four cases, seven areas in Burang County were designated as medium-risk areas for Covi-19, the chinadaily.com.cn report said.
Hotels, restaurants and other areas where they went have been locked down to contain the spread, the bloomberg.com report cited the TAR’s health authority as saying.
It was not clear whether similar designation had been made in the areas the travellers had come from.
Burang is a key land port in Tibet near borders with India and Nepal.
While TAR had remained free of the Covid-19 pandemic save for the one detected in a traveller from Hubei Province in late Jan 2020 until Aug 7, cases have been detected among Tibetans in other Tibetan areas that currently constituted Qinghai and parts of China’s Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces.
Most recently, cases in Xiahe (Tibetan: Sangchu) County of Gannan (Kanlho) Tibet autonomous prefecture of Gansu Province had risen to 52 in the current spread of the pandemic, according to a chinadaily.com.cn report Jul 23.
The situation in the county was described as grim and the authorities were constructing a 1,500-bed makeshift hospital there, reported China’s official globaltimes.cn Jul 27.