Door-to-door search for Covid-19 suspected cases in Jamshedpur

Jamshedpur, April 17: East Singhbhum district administration has embarked on drive to identify Covid-19 suspected cases. Teams formed under three civic bodies of Jamshedpur, Jugsalai and Mango are covering house-to-house to prepare report of people having record of travel history or having symptoms of coronavirus. �

The final report will help the district surveillance in monitoring those undergoing quarantine at state centre�s or at homes.

In a massive exercise to identify everybody with travel history either from overseas or domestic, East Singhbhum district administration has also decided to touch all the houses in the district.

 With help of the 2011 census, East Singhbhum has identified over 4,76,931 houses in the 11 blocks of the districts (including the urban Jamshedpur-Jugsalai block) and to reach out to each of the houses has mobilised not only the over  1700 sahiyas and anganbari sevikas but also the 1885 booth level officers (entrusted after polling booths during election), panchayat raj institutions and even thana-level community leaders.

 We do not want to leave any scope in tracing out an individual who might have come from abroad or from another state or district to East Singhbhum and want to reach each of the houses  in urban  and rural areas of the district in a limited time span. We have decided to involve everyone entrusted with implementation of government schemes and activities in the exercise and want to complete it within a week,� said East Singhbhum deputy commissioner Ravi Shankar Shukla.

Special attention is being given to the elderly, pregnant women and those with co-morbid conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and low immunity.

The team is distributing pamphlets on the measures to be taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19. They would also be informed about quarantine measures for those showing symptoms such as cold, cough and fever.

After identification of the suspected cases, they would be shifted to the isolation ward at the district headquarters hospital.

The administration is taking other steps to deal with the outbreak. A doctor has been made part of the disaster management control room round-the-clock to provide advice, and has also appealed to people not to panic.

 This is apart from the screening, testing and quarantine efforts being taken by the administration.

 This is an awareness-cum-surveillance drive. They are informed of the symptoms and asked if any resident has them. If there is such a person, we can move them into isolation.