BENGALURU: Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and health department officials have started converting all 53 primary health centres under Palike limits into fever clinics.BBMP Commissioner BH Anil Kumar told The New Indian Express that the decision was taken after Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar announced setting up of fever clinics. “All urban PHCs will be converted into fever clinics as part of crisis management,” Kumar said.
Both the BBMP and health department have decided to rope in teachers working under the education department to form 100 primary and 900 secondary connecting teams. These teams will track down primary and secondary contacts of all those who have been tested positive and those who have been in touch with people who returned from abroad. Orders to form the teams were issued on Thursday evening by Chief Secretary TM Vijay Bhaskar and the Palike started work on Friday.
As the government estimates that 1.53 lakh people have landed in Bengaluru since the COVID-19 outbreak, these many teams are needed to track people, a health department official said.
Each team will have paramedical staff and teachers. There will be one head for every 20 teams and they will report to the health department commissioner. The four special commissioners in the BBMP will also be a part of these teams. BBMP staffers will work as per the directions of the heads and special commissioners.BBMP will provide all facilities and infrastructure to the teams to work and find the people to be stamped.