VELLORE/TIRUVANNAMALAI: Despite witnessing an influx of a huge number of migrant labourers returning from other states, Jawadhu Hills has reported no COVID-19 cases so far.
Most parts of Jawadhu Hills fall under the periphery of Jamunamarathur block in Tiruvannamalai district having a tribal population of 47,358. Around half of them usually migrate to other states, particularly Karnataka and Kerala, for work in the plantation estates and some to the jungles of Andhra Pradesh for wood cutting.
Self-imposed restrictions, precautionary measures and discipline are the key factors that have insulated the tribal population from being infected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The villagers in Jamunamarathur are adopting measures to keep the pandemic away. They raise fences to block entry of people from other places into their villages. If they find anyone roaming, they immediately alert us,” R Meera, Deputy Director (DD) of Health Services, told The New Indian Express.
Hundreds of native tribal workers, who had migrated to other states, have been returning daily over the last few weeks.
Officers of government departments and agencies including the health department have been carrying out precautionary measures in the hills.
“We have been carrying out sanitizing work, distributing multi-vitamin tablets and kabasura kudineer for the tribal people as part of the measures to fight the pandemic,” said Dr H Krishna Shree, Block Medical Officer (BMO).
About 3,000 tribal labourers have returned to the hills so far. All of them have been screened at temporary camps set up at Jamunamarathur, Polur and Thachur and put in quarantine facilities until the results are received.
“All the people returning to the hills are being subjected to swab tests. We have received results of about 1700 so far. No one has tested positive,” the BMO noted.
Officials expect about 15,000 tribal labourers to return to their native villages in the next few weeks and are preparing to test them.
In Vellore too, several migrant tribal labourers have been returning to their native villages located in Anaicut block. So far, about 1,500 persons have returned from the plantation estates of Karnataka, Kerala and Kanyakumari district in Tamil Nadu.
“As many as 1239 tribal workers have returned from Karnataka and Kerala, and another 300 have come back from Kanyakumari. All of them were tested. So far, none tested positive,” said A Vincent Ramesh Babu, Block Developmental Officer (BDO) of Anaicut.