BHUBANESWAR: Faced with rising number of local cases with unaccounted source of infection, the Odisha Government has decided to conduct door-to-door survey across the State from Tuesday to check for Covid-19 symptoms among people at the community level. The ASHAs and ANMs will visit houses in both rural and urban areas, especially slums, till July 31 and examine people under the active surveillance drive. Director National Health Mission Shalini Pandit said the health workers will visit each and every household and check health status of people. They will indicate symptomatic people in their daily report. Every person with Covid-like symptom will be tested as per the guidelines of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), she said.
The urgency stems from a steady increase in local cases in the recent days. Of the 1,951 cases detected so far this month, 199 are local contacts.The number of tests in the State has crossed two lakh mark in three months. While the first 50,000 tests were conducted in two months, next 50,000 tests each were carried out in two weeks duration.Pandit said, tests per million in Odisha is higher than the national average. The State is now conducting 4,634 tests per 10 lakh population against the India average of 4,305 tests. The positivity rate per lakh population in the State is 9.3 compared to New Delhi (205), Maharashtra (88), Tamil Nadu (58.8), Gujarat (34.5) and the national average of 24.8, she said.
After the ICMR revised its strategy, the State Government has been focusing only on symptomatic cases, close contacts of positive cases and service providers involved in Covid-19 management.“The change in strategy has helped us detect more positive cases. Earlier, we had to test at least 200 samples for one positive case. Now the detection rate is one per 20 tests. We have 17 labs in 10 districts. Our focus is now that no symptomatic person is left out,” Pandit said.
The NHM Director claimed Odisha has become a model State in managing Covid-19. The rate of recovery has increased significantly and the mortality rate is the lowest in the country. The State has a recovery rate of 67 per cent against the national average of 51 pc. The State Government has also formed 10 teams to provide telecounselling on mental health in three districts during the Covid crisis. District Mental Health Programme teams have visited over 813 quarantine centres and counselled 39,123 migrants on anxiety, depression, panic disorders and substance abuse.