E-Paper
Amid fresh scare, Covid testing begins at airport, bus, rly stations in U.P.’s Prayagraj
Two teams each started the process of randomly testing passengers arriving at these places that handle the bulk of the incoming outstation passengers, said officials
In the wake of Covid-19 resurgence threat being posed by highly infectious Omicron subvariant BF.7, Sangam city has gone on the alert mode. District medical and health department restarted screening of passengers arriving at the Prayagraj airport, junction station and the main bus depots from Friday.
Two teams each started the process of randomly testing passengers arriving at these places that handle the bulk of the incoming outstation passengers, say officials. Prayagraj chief medical officer (CMO) Dr Nanak Saran said, “If any individual is detected Covid positive, they would be kept in home isolation and their samples would be sent for genome sequencing to King George’s Medical University, Lucknow, to detect the variant of the virus.”
“As soon as we get detailed guidelines in this regard from the state government, the teams undertaking the sampling and testing would also be increased,” he added. Officials said orders have been issued by the Union Health Ministry and principal Secretary, health, Uttar Pradesh, Alok Kumar in a zoom meeting held with top officials of all state medical colleges of Uttar Pradesh to remain on high alert.
“Following it, wearing of facemasks, observing social distancing, using sanitisers and other such precautions are now being strictly enforced among all doctors, para medical and other staff besides patients at the medical college and all associated hospitals, including the SRN Hospital,” said MLN Medical College principal Dr SP Singh. He said ward number 7 and 8 with a total 100 beds have been made active with requisite staff, doctors and equipment to cater to the Covid patients with immediate effect.
District officials, however, have urged people to not panic but take precautions to protect themselves as in the past around 26 days, Prayagraj district has witnessed no new Covid case. Prayagraj Nagar Nigam on its part too has started preparing itself. Municipal commissioner Chandra Mohan Garg said adequate stock of chemicals used for sanitisation of localities was being ensured.
“As soon as a new positive case gets detected, the entire area would be sanitised to ensure that the pandemic virus does not spread. All other guidelines too would be strictly followed,” he said.
Additional municipal commissioner Arvind Rai who undertook a round of all temporary and permanent night shelters in the city, said necessary steps to prevent Covid spread were also being strictly followed at all these shelters. “Sanitiser and social distancing have been enforced from Thursday evening itself,” he said.
Officials have also started reporting people coming to vaccination centres for booster doses of Covid-19 vaccines. District immunisation officer, Prayagraj, Dr Tirth Lal said Covid vaccination was not underway at many vaccination centres owing to shortage of vaccines as of now. “We have just 5,780 vaccine doses with us. Presently, bulk supply of Covid-19 vaccines is yet to be restarted by the state government but we hope fresh guidelines to come soon,” he added.
