As the current spring season draws to an end, climbers and expedition organisers have reported more Covid-19 cases on the world’s tallest peak, Mt. Everest, while an official from the Nepal’s Department of Tourism has denied it, saying no written reports were presented yet.
Damian Browne, a former Irish professional rugby player who attempted to summit the peak this year, announced in a social media post on May 22 that four climbers of his team, including himself, were infected with the Covid, Xinhua news agency reported.
TAG Nepal, a local partner of CTSS, also confirmed the infections of four climbers.
Sagar Poudel, director at TAG Nepal, told Xinhua on Monday that Browne and three others tested positive in polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests.
“In fact, 11 members of the expedition team who were tested positive with rapid test kits, were brought to Kathmandu but only four of them tested positive in PCR examination,” he said.
A total of 39 climbers from the CTSS expedition came to summit Everest.
“So far, 10 have already scaled the world’s tallest peak, with at least one of them having tested positive in antigen test but later tested negative in PCR,” said Poudel.
Although reports about Covid cases at the Everest base camp have been making international headlines, Nepali authorities have not spoken of the issue explicitly.
Officials at Nepal’s Tourism Department, which issues climbing permits to climbers, have continued to insist that they have not been officially informed about anybody being infected with the virus.
“We are also hearing about the infections but no expedition company or climber has given us a written notification about the infections so far,” Mira Acharya, director at the department, told Xinhua on Monday.
Other officials at the Department told Xinhua that they were verbally notified about the issue but they were not sure about the number of infections.
Norwegian climber Erlend Ness became the first to test positive for Covid-19 at Mt. Everest base camp and was flown by helicopter to Kathmandu for treatment. He told the press last month that he tested positive on April 15.