Covid spread in rural areas restricted to few districts; positivity rate low: Survey

In what would come as a relief for the state, an analysis of initial data collected during ongoing door-to-door rural public health survey shows that spread of coronavirus infection is restricted in few districts, besides low positivity rate being registered in villages across the state

In what would come as a relief for the state, an analysis of initial data collected during ongoing door-to-door rural public health survey shows that spread of coronavirus infection is restricted in few districts, besides low positivity rate being registered in villages across the state.

HT Image

The 10-day intensive public health survey (IPHS), that targets to reach each and every household across panchayats in the state, began on May 25. Till Friday, as many as 1,633,417 households comprising 8,207,751 persons were covered under it. “Out of the total surveyed persons so far, Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) was recommended for 53,793 suspect cases. The test has been done for 51,605 cases. Out of it, 762 cases turned out Covid-19 positive, including 21 children in the age group 0-18,” said Sidhartha Tripathi, officer on special duty of IEC wing in health department.

With the numbers being on lower side, the positivity rate stood at 1.47%, indicating a restricted spread of the pandemic in rural areas.

However, those who showed symptoms but tested negative in RAT, were recommended for RT-PCR or TruNat tests for confirmation, officials said.

However, the health survey showed a disturbing trend of several people showing signs of critical diseases such as diabetes, tuberculosis (TB) and abnormal blood pressure.

While 5,990 persons showed TB symptoms in the first four days of the survey, 43,766 persons showed symptoms of diabetes and 46,400 showed signs of abnormal blood pressure, officials said.