Centre lauds Karnataka for COVID-19 management, contact tracing of cases
New Delhi: The Centre has lauded Karnataka for its COVID-19 management, which includes the comprehensive contact tracing of COVID-19 positive cases and physical/phone-based household survey that has covered more than 1.5 crore households. The health ministry said that Karnataka has widened the definition of ‘Contact’ to include both high-risk and low-risk contacts and a number of primary and secondary contacts were meticulously traced and put under strict quarantine.
In order to identify, protect and treat high-risk population like the elderly, persons with co-morbidities, pregnant women and those with Influenza like Illness (ILI)/ Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) on priority, Karnataka conducted a physical/phone based household survey in May which covered 153 lakh households out of total 168 lakh total households.
The households reporting anyone with COVID-19 like symptoms are triaged by a telemedicine doctor and further advised. A field level health worker (ASHAs) also visits those households to ensure that the required healthcare service is provided.
Meanwhile, Indian government and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank have signed an agreement worth $750 million for COVID-19. This is the first ever budgetary support programme from AIIB to India.
Meanwhile, as coronavirus cases continue to rise in Delhi, the Union Home Ministry has asked the state government to intensify testing. Already sample testing has been doubled. Officials said a total of 27,263 samples were collected for testing in Delhi from between June 15-17. This is a significant increase in daily collection, which earlier varied between 4,000-4,500. Besides, house to house health survey in 242 containment zones of Delhi covering 2.3 lakh people was completed on Thursday.
“To increase testing capacity and quick delivery of results in Delhi, testing via Rapid Antigen methodology started yesterday. 7040 people have been tested in 193 testing centres. Testing will continue with increased numbers in coming days,” officials said.
