UP govt goes the last mile to contain Covid spread in villages, earns praise from WHO
The World Health Organization (WHO) lauded the efforts of the Uttar Pradesh government to contain the virus in rural areas with special reference to the Mass Testing drive being conducted in the revenue villages as the state government is exerting efforts to ensure safety of villagers.
New Delhi: Uttar Pradesh state government has initiated house-to-house active case finding of COVID-19 in rural areas to contain transmission by testing people with symptoms for rapid isolation, disease management and contact tracing.
To prevent the spread of coronavirus infection in rural Uttar Pradesh, on the instructions of CM Yogi Adityanath, the mass testing drive is running in the villages. The Team workers are reaching the houses of patients to treat and counsel them.
Government teams are moving across 97,941 villages in 75 districts over five days for this activity, which began on 5 May in India’s most populous state with a population of 230 million.
Each monitoring team has two members, who visit homes in villages and remote hamlets to test everyone with symptoms of COVID-19 using Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) kits. Those who test positive are quickly isolated and given a medicine kit with advice on disease management. All the contacts of those who test positive are quarantined and tested using an RT-PCR at home by a rapid response team.
Two mobile vans have been allocated to each Block within a District in the state to test people with symptoms, even as routine sample collection and testing continues in Community Health Centres.
The state government has deployed 141,610 teams and 21,242 supervisors from the state health department for this activity to ensure all rural areas are covered.
Those with symptoms are tested and given medicine kits and information on quarantining and isolation, both at home and in hospitals. People without signs of COVID-19 are urged to get vaccinated and follow COVID-appropriate behaviours to prevent transmission in rural areas of India’s most populated state.
WHO applauds unique initiative to curb Covid-19 spread
The World Health Organization (WHO) lauded the efforts of the Uttar Pradesh government to contain the virus in rural areas with special reference to the Mass Testing drive being conducted in the revenue villages as the state government is exerting efforts to ensure safety of villagers.
In #India‘s ?? most populous state Uttar Pradesh, the state gov. has initiated house-to-house active case finding of #COVID19 in rural areas to contain transmission by testing people with symptoms for rapid isolation, disease management & contact tracing
?https://t.co/pbDi98UByQ pic.twitter.com/7H2yXcU0if— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) May 10, 2021
The global health body valued the measures taken by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his government in preventing the spread of the deadly Covid-19 in the remote areas of the state.
The WHO appreciated the UP-government’s initiative of a door-to-door testing campaign by RRTs and surveillance teams in around 97509 revenue villages of the state to combat the spread of the virus across the villages.
WHO, which supported Uttar Pradesh government in training and micro planning for the activity, now has field officers on the ground to monitor and share real-time feedback with the government for immediate corrective action to ensure quality. On the inaugural day, WHO field officers monitored over 2,000 government teams and visited at least 10,000 households. WHO will also support the Uttar Pradesh government on the compilation of the final reports.
Micro planning, house visits, concurrent monitoring and follow ups were core to India’s polio eradication strategy to ensure no one misses access to vaccination and health care services.
5-day campaign extended further, surveillance exercise to deepen
The surveillance committees have so far visited over 30312470 houses and identified around 203315 migrants. Till now, as many as 318930 medical kits were distributed in the villages.
The 5-day campaign which is extended further aimed at identifying people with symptoms of coronavirus in villages and get them hospitalized for immediate treatment. For this, members of the Monitoring Committee and Rapid Response Teams have been provided with medical kits and antigen test kits. During the campaign, the teams are checking the oxygen level of people using a pulse oximeter and conducting other tests to know the health status of the villagers.
At the same time, these committees are creating awareness among the people, assuring that the Yogi government is standing with its people at every step. The Surveillance committees are proving useful in breaking the corona chain through contact tracing. Contact tracing is an essential public health tool used to stop the transmission provided it is done timely and all the contacts are screened effectively.