BackOfficials race to keep green zones safe as curbs relaxed
Health ministry to ramp up district-level surveillance as public transport services resumeThere is a need to establish systematic surveillance for infection in all districts, says govt
PremiumThe Union health ministry will broaden monitoring of covid-19 to all the districts and prevent the virus from impacting uninfected districts, the Centre said on Monday. The decision has been taken against the backdrop of public transport services resuming and thousands of migrants reaching their homes in trains.
The government is starting district-level surveillance for covid-19 in addition to routine testing, in line with testing guidelines that aim to monitor the trend in the prevalence of the infection, it said.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), in collaboration with key stakeholders and state health departments, are also initiating a population based sero-survey in selected districts representing the case detection across the country.
Ten health facilities, including six public and four private ones, would be selected from each district for the survey, according to the health ministry. The population groups will be categorized in low-risk and high-risk population. The low-risk population will include outpatient attendees who have non-influenza like illness and pregnant women. The high-risk population will be healthcare workers.
The authorities will test more than 800 samples from 400 health workers, 200 non-influenza like illness outpatients, and 200 pregnant women in a month.
“Throat/nasal swabs will be collected for RT-PCR tests. Samples would be tested in pools of 25. Results of the sample pool is only for surveillance and should not be used for diagnosis of individual patients," the government said.
“Blood samples would also be collected for detecting IgG antibodies for ELISA testing. In subsequent rounds, IgG ELISA based testing of serum samples will replace RT-PCR based testing for surveillance," the government said.
The study will be implemented by district and state health authorities, the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP), NCDC, ICMR institutes, community medicine departments of medical colleges, and public health institutes.
“We also have to ensure that rural India remains free from the coronavirus crisis," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said during the videoconference with chief ministers on Monday.
The government has been aggressively working on its testing and more than 100,000 persons are tested in one day. “We now, after a huge and avoidable delay, have increased testing. The increased testing is also getting us higher numbers. Further, surveillance will also help in containing the spread. Considering the density of the Indian population, we need to double our testing and surveillance," said Amir Ullah Khan, senior research fellow at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, a social health think tank.
“We need to step up syndromic surveillance of all districts to identify areas with a high load of ILI and follow-up with lab testing of cases and contacts, with more intense efforts in high load districts, which will need a longer period of containment," said professor K. Srinath Reddy, president, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), a private public partnership health initiative. “We must prevent the spread of the infection from urban to rural areas through permitted transport only for essential needs and goods. We should gear up both communities partnered primary health services and hospital readiness," he said.
The government said that it has been able to find out hotspots in various areas with the Aarogya Setu app. “We combine the movement history of positive patients with the self-assessment data submitted by others. This enables us to identify potential hotspot areas and take preventive action. Information on 697 such spots have been sent to states and districts," said Ajay Sawhney, chairman, Empowered Group 9 on covid-19.
So far, a total of 20,917 people have been cured. This takes the total recovery rate to 31.15% for India.
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