Door-to-door campaign in rural Haryana to detect, contain Covid

The Haryana government on Saturday announced to depute around 8,000 multidisciplinary teams to launch a door-to-door Covid-19 screening drive in rural areas amid reports of low testing and underreporting of the infection in the hinterland

The Haryana government on Saturday announced to depute around 8,000 multidisciplinary teams to launch a door-to-door Covid-19 screening drive in rural areas amid reports of low testing and underreporting of the infection in the hinterland.

The multidisciplinary teams led by trainee doctors and health department officials will have ASHA and anganwadi workers. One team will approximately cover 500 households. (HT File)

The multidisciplinary teams led by trainee doctors and health department officials will have ASHA and anganwadi workers. One team will approximately cover 500 households.

As the pandemic is hitting rural areas hard after affecting big cities, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Saturday said that apart from door-to-door health screening camps, dharamshalas, government schools, and AYUSH centres will have to be converted into isolation centres to contain the virus spread.

“We have to protect rural areas from the virus at any cost. Every officer concerned should ensure that special vigilance is kept on every village and for this a massive Covid screening campaign should be conducted in all villages,” said Khattar during a review meeting.

The CM directed that since the virus is spreading fast in rural areas, special screening camps should focus on ‘test, track and treat’ strategy to catch people having Covid symptoms.

“Through these camps, the officers concerned should ensure that every member of 60 lakh families residing in Haryana are tested tracked and treated,” Khattar said, adding that every journalist will be given priority during the vaccination drive.

CONTROL ROOM

To keep check on the arbitrary charges being levied by ambulance operators and to clamp down black marketing of medicines, Haryana home minister Anil Vij said a control room has been set up in state in which any person can file a complaint.

He said that so far, 45 persons have been arrested in this regard.

Vij added that these days, cases of arbitrary charges being levied by ambulance operators have become rampant due to which the government is keeping a strict vigil on it.

He said that strict action will be taken in cases of black marketing of medicines and overcharging of ambulances.