Soliga community beats Covid-19

Team Udayavani, Dec 22, 2020, 12:01 PM IST

Chamarajanagar: The world has stumbled due to the atrocities of Covid-19 but this part of Karnataka hasn’t yet been affected. This is the story of Soliga community residing in the forests. A story of overcoming Covid-19.

Among the ten thousand people residing in 27 pods, none have contracted the virus so far. While the world was anxiously fighting against the virus, these forest inhabitants lived a life without fear.

The ban on tourists visiting the forests came to the community’s rescue. The forest officer visited pods and issued safety guidelines to the inhabitants. The head of Pods, K Gudiya Kanneri said that the people followed the instructions given by the Forest Department and that no one has yet contracted the virus.

How did they win?

Following the lockdown in March, state borders were closed. The Soliga community became cautious after the Forest Department warned them about the virus. The inhabitants closed the boundaries of the areas where they lived and fenced their pods and watched over it day and night not allowing any outsider to enter.

Dr. Santosh Kumar, Director of BRT Tiger Reserve said that they were concerned about the health of members of Soliga Community but they self protected themselves.

Speaking about the general public behaving irresponsibly when it comes following the Covid-19 guidelines, Manoj Kumar of Chamarajanagara, said that when it comes to tribal community, their self care and self protection in health care sector is top notch.