With the deadly second wave of COVID-19 spreading its tentacles to the rural areas of Haryana, the State Government will begin the door-to-door surveillance on May 15 to find out influenza like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) cases.
For this, villagers general health checkup scheme has been chalked out by the State's Health Department. Under this, a list of 7007 villages in 22 districts of the state has been prepared where two designated teams i.e. field team and the village headquarter team will be designated to carry out the surveillance work.
The State Government has allocated 5000 thermometers, 5200 pulse oximeters, 20000 paracetamol tablets (500 gm), 20000 calcium salts plus vitamin D3 tablets, 20000 doxycycline capsules, 100000 B-complex tablets, 200000 vitamin c tablets and 200000 OPR to the districts under the health checkup scheme.
A letter from Rajeev Arora, Additional Chief Secretary was sent to all deputy commissioners and civil surgeons on Friday to start the health check up of people in rural areas from May 15.
The rural areas of Haryana were safe from the first wave of COVID but the second wave has reached many villages in Rohtak, Hisar, Bhiwani, Karnal, Panipat among other districts.
“The health check up scheme will be rolled out in several parts of the state on Saturday. The village with high COVID load will be taken on priority during the survey by field teams. It was proposed to form 8000 teams. Teams are being formed accordingly and will be scaled up in the near future,” said a senior officer of the Health Department while talking to The Pioneer.
The field team will have four members including ASHA, anganwadi worker, school teacher, lady panchayat member or gram sachiv of that village or any other member nominated by BDPO. The four members team will go house to house for a survey of ILI like symptoms and general check up of the population. This team will refer the selected cases to the village head quarter team at the village isolation centre, he said.
The field team will be provided with a triple layer or surgical mask for self use and distribution among the population, hand sanitizers, infrared thermal scanner and pulse oximeters.
The officer said that the village isolation centres to be set up in villages will have 2 rooms, each with space for 5-10 beds with adequate ventilation, clean drinking water, fan and separate toilet facility.Buildings with the facility of toilets and electricity like schools, Panchayat Ghars or Community Centres are being converted into village isolation centres.
The rooms will be designated as a quarantine room (for suspected patients who have not been tested) and an isolation room for confirmed COVID patients, he added.
The CEOs, Zila Parishads will be the nodal officer while DDPOs and BDPOs will assist the Deputy Commissioners in setting up these isolation centres.
Apart from this, a rapid antigen team is also constituted which will visit the village COVID Care Centre for sample collection and monitoring of admitted patients.
Notably, the Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had a day before directed to get sanitization done in every village of the state.
HARYANA RECORDS 164 DEATHS, 10,608 NEW CASES
Haryana on Friday reported 164 fatalities and 10608 fresh COVID-19 cases. The state also reported 14577 recoveries, once again more than the fresh infections for the fifth consecutive day. A day before, 163 deaths, 12286 fresh infections and 16041 new recoveries were reported in Haryana.
According to the state's health bulletin, the death toll due to COVID-19 has reached 6402 while the state's cumulative caseload was recorded at 675636. The state's active cases declined below one lakh and was recorded at 99007.
In the last 24 hours, a maximum of 16 deaths were reported in Rohtak followed by 15 fatalities in Gurugram and 12 in Jind. A maximum of 2144 fresh infections were reported in the worst affected district of Gurugram followed by 1146 cases in Hisar and 826 cases in Faridabad.
Till date, more than 81.82 lakh samples have been tested in Haryana. 64912 samples were tested in the last 24 hours, the bulletin stated. The state recorded a test positivity rate of 15.94 percent on Friday. The cumulative positivity rate was recorded at 8.30 while the recovery rate stood at 84 percent in Haryana. The fatality rate in the state was recorded at 0.95 percent.
