Nepal MP's undergo Corona test a day before house resumes

Members of both the Upper and Lower Houses came turn by turn, walked to the assigned table and had their throat swab sample extracted to make sure that they have not contracted COVID-19.All the Member of Parliament who had their sample tested on Thursday will get their report by Friday morning and it has been made mandatory to show report before entering the Assembly hall.Along with, Nepal parliament has adopted social distancing while conducting the session in both the assembly as per the standard of World Health Orgzation.

Members of both the Upper and Lower Houses came turn by turn, walked to the assigned table and had their throat swab sample extracted to make sure that they have not contracted COVID-19.

All the collected samples will undergo process of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) to make sure largest gathering is free of contamination as both houses are set to resume from Friday.

"Many of the Honorable Members went around various places, hometowns and districts while some went to the places where outbreak are reported to access ground situation. There is high chance that they might have contracted the virus and its (Virus) mutation which at first was reported to be symptomatic but in due course of time it has adapted itself to asymptomatic infection," Ganesh Prashad Timilsina, Chairman of Nepal's National Assembly told .

"Here in the house, representatives who belong to those reported districts, who went on visit, who reside there or might have come to close contact with infected ones which is not known. If any of them are later proved to be infected then we would have to quarantine about 700 people including staffs and security personnel, it is the ground reality."

On Thursday, Chairing Ministers, House and Deputy-house speakers along with other leaders from opposition and ruling party had their samples collected for the test.

A total of 203 MPs comprising both the Houses came for the test while the remaining are called on for Friday morning at 8 to take part in the sample test.

Nepal's Lower House- House of Representatives have a total of 275 members while the Upper House- National Assembly has 59 members. All members of both the parliament have been made compulsory to undergo the test as Budget Session has been called on from May 8 at 4 PM.

All the Member of Parliament who had their sample tested on Thursday will get their report by Friday morning and it has been made mandatory to show report before entering the Assembly hall.

Along with, Nepal parliament has adopted social distancing while conducting the session in both the assembly as per the standard of World Health Orgzation.

"Indeed there are some standards for maintaining social distance issued by WHO and technicians from our Health Ministry made the survey. We had made some changes over seat plan by maintaining distance of one chair but later they insisted to maintain distance equivalent to two seats and we have followed it for the planned meeting," Timilsina said.

Nepal's newly adopted constitution of 2015 has deadline of May-28 to table the Budget. In order to keep on the deadline the Government of Nepal is set to start the Pre-budget discussion from Sunday- May 10. After the start of Pre-budget session, Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari will be tabling Plans and Policy on May 15.

Nepal till date has recorded a total of 99 cases of COVID-19 with 22 successful recoveries and zero mortality to the deadly virus which first started from Wuhan of China.

( With inputs from ANI )