CHENNAI: From about 500 fever camps to screen people for COVID-19 symptoms, the Chennai Corporation now aims to increase them to 680 in the coming weeks due to a very large turnout.
“We have been conducting between 500 and 550 camps but our ultimate aim is to reach 680. We will be increasing it soon,’’ Corporation Commissioner G Prakash told The New Indian Express.
The fever camps have been a big success for the Corporation, especially since June. When the civic body held about 120 camps in May, around 6000 people had attended. But since then, camps have increased to 514 as of July 2, and now close to 30,000 people attend daily.
So far, 11,376 fever camps were held till July 2 and 7.41 lakh people have attended them. A total of 33,090 cases of Influenza like Illnesses were recorded and 29,051 swabs were taken for RT-PCR tests.
While two camps are set up for every ward, hotspots have up to 4 camps and the civic body announces the camp details from an auto as well.
According to corporation data, out of the 37,574 people who have attended the camps, 6390 (17 percent) had ILI symptoms and in Royapuram, where a whopping 61,109 people have attended, 9 percent had ILI symptoms.
The Corporation Commissioner said that the camps help in bringing out more Influenza like Illnesses like cases.
“The volunteers identify symptoms like fever by going door-to-door using thermal guns. Symptomatic cases are brought to the fever camps and are checked by doctors. If needed, swabs are taken and they are directed to the hospitals,’’ said Prakash.
Simultaneously, the active cases too have fallen largely in the city to 36 percent, while the recovery rate has increased to 62 percent.
“Micro level containment has been successfully rolled out in the field and is gaining strength. With more additions of homes under surveillance, the net results will be good in terms of controlled spread,’’ added Prakash.
Currently, the city has 158 containment zones of which 50 are from Tondiarpet and 43 from Anna Nagar corporation zones.