E-Paper
Pilibhit becomes first UP district to shed corona tag
Pilibhit became the first district in Uttar Pradesh to shed the coronavirus tag when the district’s only two Covid-19 patients — a woman and her son — were discharged from hospital after they tested negative for the Sars-Cov-2 virus for the second time.
Pilibhit became the first district in Uttar Pradesh to shed the coronavirus tag when the district’s only two Covid-19 patients — a woman and her son — were discharged from hospital after they tested negative for the Sars-Cov-2 virus for the second time, officials said.
There was no fresh Covid case in the district at present, district magistrate Vaibhav Srivastava said.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath congratulated the Pilibhit district magistrate and superintendent of police Abhisek Dixit on achieving the coronavirus-free tag. The chief minister directed the officers to launch intensive tracking, screening, testing and treatment drives to check spread of the coronavirus in the district.
The effort of the district administration and district health department was a major achievement for the state, said additional chief secretary, home, Awanish Kumar Awasthi and principal secretary, health and family welfare, Amit Mohan Prasad.
They said Pilibhit was among the 41 districts in the state in which coronavirus cases were reported. With the exit of Pilibhit from that list now, the number of coronavirus affected districts had come down to 40, the officers said.
The Pilibhit DM said the district had a population of 22 lakh. After discharge of two patients from hospital, there were 32 people in institutional quarantine, he said. All of them would be discharged soon as they had completed 28 days in quarantine and their samples had tested negative, he said.
Earlier, the district administration was on high alert after the first Covid positive case was reported in west UP, he recalled.
“We activated our intelligence network and told all the gram pradhans to alert the district administration if any person arrived from outside the district. On March 19, a gram pradhan in Amaria area of the district informed us that a 73-year-old woman returned from Saudi Arabia with symptoms of the disease. A health department team with four ambulances was rushed to the village at night. The health department transported 36 people, including family members of the woman, to quarantine centres,” he said.
The samples were sent for tests. The women and her son were shifted to an isolation ward after they tested positive. The health department sanitized 23 villages in the area afterwards.
Srivastava said over 9,000 migrant workers arrived in Pilibhit from various part of the country after the announcement of the nationwide lockdown on March 25. The district administration put the migrant workers in quarantine facilities. All the migrants were screened and examined by the health teams. Fifteen outposts with magistrate rank officer as in-charge were set up on the border to check the entry of outsiders.
Patrolling was organised round the clock and a bus transporting people from Noida was seized on Saturday, he said.
The district administration is working on a multi-pronged strategy. It includes strengthening health facilities, increasing isolation and quarantine facilities in the hospitals, regular interaction with people through helplines, control rooms and social media platforms, besides providing emergency services to people and supplying essential commodities at their doorstep in villages and localities.
