Focus On House-To-House Survey, Prompt Testing: Health Ministry To 45 Civic Bodies

New Delhi: In view of the surge in COVID-19 cases, the Union Health Ministry on Monday (June 8) asked officials of 45 municipalities and municipal corporations across 38 districts in 10 states to focus on house-to-house surveys and prompt testing to contain the infection. The 38 districts are from Maharashtra, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Haryana, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh. Union Health Secretary Preeti Sudan along with senior officers of the Health Ministry held a high-level review meeting, via video conference, with the district collectors, municipal commissioners, superintendent of district hospitals and principals of medical colleges from 45 municipal corporations.

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During the meeting, Ms Sudan directed all states to make a “district-wise prospective plan” for the coming months.

The Health Secretary also directed the states to involve the elected representatives in the rural areas for cooperating with the district health authorities for confidence building and timely accessing of available health services.

She further discussed main issues such as widespread coronavirus infection in densely populated urban areas; the importance of house-to-house surveys; prompt testing followed by isolation and clinical management of cases and containment strategies.

Areas that need constant attention included active house-to-house survey for timely detection; augmentation of the survey teams; efficient ambulance management; efficient triaging of patients at the hospitals and bed management; clinical management of the hospitalised cases through rotational 24×7 teams to ensure reduction in the fatality rates they were also advised to ensure that the testing results were returned by the labs in time for ensuring early identification and timely treatment, Ms Sudan said.

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She directed the states to take in the containment zones for case management and buffer zones surveillance activities and promotion of COVID appropriate behaviour and reminded to activate the fever clinics for detection of SARI/ILI cases in the buffer zones.

In terms of infrastructure and human resource management for containment of COVID-19, the Health Ministry said proper planning for health infrastructure should be taken up, adequate number of surveillance teams should be provided and a system should be put in place for bed availability management.

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It added that Centres of Excellence can provide hand-holding for medical professionals and senior officers should be deployed for hospitals to offer help to citizens to find health services as per their need.

On field governance, municipal authorities were advised to take leadership and put the entire municipal infrastructure for containment measures using the ”whole of government approach”.

According to the Union Health Ministry, so far, a total of 1,24,430 people has been cured. 5,137 patients were cured in the last 24 hours. “This takes the total recovery rate to 48.49 per cent. The total number of active cases is now 1,24,981,” the statement read.

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