10,000 govt staff screen 10L people in 1 1 TN districts

8 New Cases Take Total +ve Count To 50

Pushpa.Narayan@timesgroup.com

Chennai:30.03.2020

The Tamil Nadu government on Sunday scaled up efforts to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, with more than 10,000 health officials and government employees screening 10 lakh people across 11 districts for symptoms. As the state’s Covid-19 positive count touched 50 with eight new cases — one of whom was a 10-month-old boy — the government braced itself for a possible surge in infections by placing orders for 1,500 more ventilators, 30,000 testing kits and 20 lakh N-95 masks.

By 7am, district and civic authorities had demarcated a 5km radius containment zone around houses of people who tested positive and a further 3km radius buffer zone. In Chennai, more than 1.5 lakh people were screened by 5,000 Greater Chennai Corporation domestic breeding checkers (DBCs) and anganwadi staff, 750 health nurses and 1,500 school teachers. More than 700 workers from Tirupur and Salem screened close to a lakh people. Officials at the state covid-19 control room were still tabulating numbers on the people with flu-like symptoms.

“The aim is to bring the curve down and delay the peak with this containment plan,” said director of public health Dr K Kolandasamy. Health workers have been told to take details including travel history of people who had symptoms of fever and cold, he said.

TN has drawn around 1,700 respiratory infection samples

They ask them several questions, sometimes even talk to neighbours before writing down that the patient has no travel history,” he said. “This is a serious task done to identify and isolate people with symptoms.” In Chennai, people with exposure to positive patients or those with a travel history were asked to wear a mask even inside the house.

While we have initiated the containment plan, we have not stopped planning for the epidemic surge, said health minister C Vijayabaskar. “We have about 15,000 beds in the government sector and private hospitals have come forward to give 25% of their beds. In addition, many private medical college hospitals have offered up to 500 beds each,” he said.

Besides the 550 bed exclusive hospital in Omandurar Medical College Hospital, the state is getting 200-bed facility in Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, 250-beds in Kilpauk Medical College and Hospital and 300-beds in Stanley Medical College Hospital. “Every district hospital will also have an exclusive block for treating Covid-19 patients,” he said.

Health workers also created a line list of high-risk patients, including the elderly and those with chronic ailments such as heart and renal conditions. Those requiring medical attention were referred to doctors.

As of now the state has no empirical evidence to show whether there is community transmission. Senior public health expert T Sundararaman, who was the former dean of School of Health Systems Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, said testing should be based on clinical differential diagnosis. “Even if the symptoms are mild and attending physician deems that Covid-19 is one of the differential diagnoses, test should be done. What is the point in offering biosafety to doctors when you allow patients with mild symptoms to go around freely,” he said.

So far, the state has drawn around 1700 acute respiratory infection samples. “We have ordered another 30,000 testing kits. Of this 10,000 will reach us Tuesday and remaining will be available by mid-April,” said Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation managing director Dr P Umanath. The state will then ramp up testing for more people, he said.

In addition, the state has also ordered 1,500 more ventilators from China, Israel and Europe. “All of them will be available in four to six weeks. Government hospitals will then have 4,000 invasive ventilators,” he said.

In addition, to instill confidence in the medical fraternity, the corporation was releasing 1 lakh surgical masks to doctors and staff at various government hospitals every day. Orders have also been placed for 20 lakh N-95 masks.

The eight patients, including the ten-month-old boy, who tested positive on Sunday were linked to the two Thai nationals, who are still undergoing treatment at IRT Perundurai Medical College Hospital in Erode, health secretary Beela Rajesh said.