The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Saturday launched a mega door-to-door health screening programme in non-slum areas of the city in order to further strengthen its measures in fighting Covid-19 pandemic.

A two-member team consisting of an AYUSH doctor, female health worker or a teacher are visiting each and every household under three zones of the civic body to collect information about any illness or flu-like symptoms or Covid-19 symptoms, travel history, information about elderly people and children.

As many as 42 teams have been deployed in the North and South-West zones each and 55 teams in the South-East zone of the BMC to carry out the health screening. One team is tasked to cover at least 100 households every day and the screening will continue for three weeks.

The officials engaged in the survey wore basic safety gear such as masks and gloves and carried hand sanitizers. The teams have been given thermal guns to check temperature and pulse oximeters to monitor a person’s oxygen saturation level.

Apart from basic details like name, age, address and contact, teams are asking individuals about symptoms of cough, cold, fever or breathing problems and whether or not they use the Sachetak mobile App.

It’s a public welfare exercise, and we urge the citizens to be truthful while providing information to the surveyors. The aim is to identify people with Covid-like symptoms, create a comprehensive database and then get them tested to check its spread,” said ADUPHO (Additional District Urban Public Health Officer) Dr CVSN Rao.

The information collected at the end of the exercise will be compiled and the data can be used to map out areas that are reporting more cases of Covid-like symptoms and help in further surveillance activities. If anyone has signs of the infection, they are asked to go to the nearest testing centre.

Notably, the state saw a record spike in new positive cases. There were 3,913 cases reported on Sunday with Khurda district leading the tally with 556 cases followed by 382 cases in Cuttack.

As the state capital is in Khurda districts, it has become a massive challenge for BMC Commissioner Prem Chandra Chaudhary and (Cuttack) CMC Commissioner Ananya Das to control the rising spike in the twin city.

BMC Commissioner Prem Chandra Chaudhary has been regularly organising Sampark Abhiyan Programme on Covid-19 awareness with different community members in the state capital.

Story Credit : www.indiatoday.in