In India’s remote peaks, the pandemic’s toll is worsened by lack of medical facilities, roads and information
Phalguni Devi has spent a fortnight living in a cattle shed. Looking out on a rainy afternoon in early June, she worries that if the rain does not let up, her fever-like symptoms will worsen.
Devi, 51, shares the shed with a cow and two cats, and this has taken its toll. Herbal concoctions have not worked and the visit to a pharmacist in the nearest town, in the Nijmola valley in the Himalayas, which took an entire day, did not help.
