E-Paper
Covid-free Shravasti - How the dist admn did it
LUCKNOW Located 175 km north of Lucknow on the Nepal border, Shravasti was in the limelight on Wednesday when chief minister Yogi Adityanath declared the district Covid free and lauded the district administration here for this achievement
LUCKNOW Located 175 km north of Lucknow on the Nepal border, Shravasti was in the limelight on Wednesday when chief minister Yogi Adityanath declared the district Covid free and lauded the district administration here for this achievement.
No fresh Covid case has been reported in Shravasti and the active cases in the district are also zero. Yogi said other districts should also follow the Shravasti model to check the spread of the Covid.
Categorized as an aspirational district, the fight against Covid pandemic was not easy for the health department in this district. When the second wave hit Uttar Pradesh in April first week, Shravasti reported 1,036 active cases on April 30 when the Covid graph was at its peak in the state.
Unfolding the strategy adopted by the district to check the spread of Covid, chief medical officer (CMO), Shravasti, Dr AP Bhargava said the district has a large migrant population - people who move to metropolitan cities including Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata or states like Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka in search of petty jobs.
“We decided to focus on the migrant population. Surveillance committees constituted in rural and urban areas of the district were directed to collect information of people returning home from other states or districts. A health team was dispatched to their home to collect the sample of the migrants. If the report was positive, the infected person was admitted to health facilities. Samples of family members or close associates of positive persons were also collected for laboratory test,” he said.
The personnel deputed at the Integrated Command and Control Centre took regular feedback from patients in home isolation. If they reported any problem, a rapid response team was dispatched to address the issue, he said.
“In mid-April, the district was in the grip of an oxygen crisis. The district administration got supply from neighbouring districts to maintain the oxygen supply to the level 2 Covid facility set up at Bhanga primary health centre (PHC). Now, we have installed oxygen plant at the PHC to maintain regular supply of oxygen to the wards,” said Dr Bhargava.
To check the spread of Covid, the district health department focused on RT-PCR sample tests and rapid vaccination of the rural population. Health teams were dispatched to the villages to clear doubts of rural population over the vaccine and motivate them to take the jabs at government facilities.
The recovery rate is around 98%, whereas the positivity rate is zero, he added.
“We have also started preparations for the possible third wave. The district administration has set up a 100-bed Level 1 Covid facility at Sonwa community health centre (CHC) while a 40-bed paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) at Laxmanpur health centre and a 20-bed PICU at Sonwa health centre have been set up. We are also setting up PICUs at Goura and Maldipur health centres. Door to door surveys in rural areas have been launched to check the outbreak of vector-borne diseases during monsoon,” added Bhargava.
