Five of 57 girls tested positive were pregnant before being admitted to the shelter
Kanpur:
Fifty-seven girls living in a government-run shelter in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, tested positive for the new coronavirus last week. This means that the institution is now a COVID-19 cluster in a city with a high workload.
The 57 girls were transferred to COVID-19 hospitals, while staff and uninfected girls were quarantined and the entire facility was closed.
There was controversy earlier Sunday after local media reported that at least two of the girls became pregnant during a medical examination, raising questions about the shelter supposed to protect them.
However, in a late-night clarification, the Kanpur district magistrate said that although five of those tested positive were in fact pregnant, their pregnancies had occurred before their admission to the shelter in December of last year.
“They (the five girls) were sent here to this shelter via five child protection committees in different districts. These are cases under the POCSO (Protection of Children against Sexual Offenses) law. were admitted to the shelter, they were already pregnant, “Dr. Brahm Dev Tiwari, the district magistrate, said.
Poonam Kapoor, a member of the UP Women’s State Commission, told the media that the girls were probably infected after the foster care staff visiting a Kanpur hospital with two girls came into contact with COVID-19 patients.
Kanpur currently has 400 active coronavirus cases, the second highest in the state. Only Noida, in the National Capital Region, has more with 577 cases.
In Uttar Pradesh, there are almost 17,000 cases, of which just over 6,000 are active. The state recorded 507 deaths from the infectious virus.
The national COVID-19 count crossed 4.1 lakh today; 15,413 cases reported in the past 24 hours, the government said in the morning. 13,254 deaths have been linked to the virus.
