Kerala may test all persons in containment zones
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the number of Covid-19 cases going up, the state health department is planning to test all people belonging to a containment zone. At present, house-to-house visits of surveillance teams and testing of all persons are limited to high-risk areas. A section of experts have said the move is impractical.The state’s new policy comes close on the heels of the Union health ministry’s advisory on ‘Strategy for Covid-19 testing in India,’ released on Friday.
“What the ministry says is that the advisory is generic in nature and the state health authorities could modify the same as per their discretion. Considering the high-risk situation, when it has been warned that the next fortnight is crucial for the state, the instructions are generally acceptable,” said a senior officer with the health department.
The officer added a final decision would be taken at a high-level committee meeting chaired by the chief minister. It is learnt that the state expert committee and state medical board constituted for Covid-19 might provide advice on the same.“Earlier mass testing was carried out in areas like Ponnani and Poonthura. Even then, the entire population was not covered. The new advisory suggests mass testing should not be limited to high-risk areas but have to be extended to containment zones. Through this, early identification of cases will become possible,” the officer.
‘There is a need to redefine our containment strategy’
In addition, a dedicated team must be set up for carrying out house-to-house search for cases. The advisory also envisions the role of a supervisor who will act as an intermediary between the field-level surveillance teams and the medical officer. It has been mentioned that the supervisor could be selected from locally available resources like lady health visitors (maternity assistant or ASHA worker, or anganwadi worker), booth-level officials, Ayush students, teachers, sanitary inspectors and male health workers.
The other features of the advisory which will be considered by the state include asking mothers who test positive to wear masks and frequently wash their hands while handling their babies for 14 days. Dr A S Anoop Kumar, critical care medicine expert with Baby Memorial Hospital, Kozhikode, said it was impractical. “Because of the high density of population, the suggestion to test everybody in a containment zone seems impractical. Also, there is a need to redefine our containment strategy,” said Anoop.
“The way we determine the containment zones is not sensible. There is no point in declaring an entire ward/sub ward as a containment zone when a majority of the people there had no contact with a positive case. Thus redefining the containment strategy is the need of the hour,” he added.