NEW DELHI: The Delhi government has formed at least 1,100 teams to conduct a mega exercise to screen the national capital’s population for Covid-19, revenue department officials said on Friday. Around 100 teams have been formed in every district. These teams will have accredited social health activists (ASHA) and auxiliary nurse midwives (ANM) as its members.
The process of screening every household, which has to be completed by July 6, has already started in the municipal wards of some districts. The teams are armed with a mobile application, SS Corona, which will send real-time details to a dedicated web portal set up by the government.
Apart from basic details like name, age, address and contact number, the teams are feeding the mobile application with information such as every individual’s travel history, whether or not they use the Centre’s Aarogya Setu app and if they have influenza symptoms.
“Training of the ASHA workers and ANMs has been done. The screening exercise has started,” an official said. “We will engage domestic breeder checkers, sanitation workers and teachers of municipal schools for the survey, if we require their services in the coming days,” he added. This is a trust-based exercise, the official said, adding, “We cannot force somebody to undergo the test.” (With agency inputs)
July 6 deadline
The house-to-house screening will be completed by June 30 in the containment zones and July 6 in the remaining areas of the city.
According to the 2011 Census, there were over 34.35 lakh households in the national capital, including 33.56 lakh in urban areas and 79,574 in rural areas.