HYDERABAD: In an attempt to increase clinical surveillance and make use of community-based early alerts to prevent COVID transmissions in local communities, both private and corporate hospitals have been asked to report all admissions of severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) to the State Health Department.
Speaking to Express, Dr G Srinivas Rao, Director of Public Health, said, “We will ask each hospital to submit the number of SARI cases, so that we can immediately track if there is a spike in such cases in a specific locality.
This is being done as most of the symptoms of SARI are similar to that of Coronavirus. Therefore, if there is a sudden and unprecedented spike in the number of SARI cases from a specific or multiple areas, the cause and the probability of COVID can be investigated, thereby reducing the chance of a community-based spread of the virus”.
Stating that surveillance would be taken up in hospitals where majority of patients get admitted for severe respiratory problems identical to those seen in COVID-19, the government said all teaching hospitals, district hospitals, area and corporate and other private hospitals were being identified as sentinel sites for surveillance.
The hospitals must report the number of admissions due to pneumonia and respiratory infections every day and also the number of deaths due to such infections.
The authorities have also issued broad criteria to identify the cases. Patients should be above 15 years of age, with fever, respiratory symptoms, severe cough, shortness of breath and hospitalisation.
If patients have all the above four conditions, such cases should be immediately reported to the State Integrated Diseases Surveillance Programme (IDSP) teams on WhatsApp - 90597-46612 or mail to idsp@telangana.gov.in.
The authorities said the list of such patients should be maintained by all the hospitals and should be shared as and when asked to.
Do not gather in large numbers, farmers told
Agriculture Minister Singireddy Niranjan Reddy directed the officials on Monday to ensure that a large number of farmers do not gather at agricultural market committees for the sale of their produce.
The Minister said posters should be displayed at all market yards about preventive measures to be taken to avoid contracting Coronavirus.
The markets should be kept clean and the officials should take the necessary help from local municipal officials, the Minister said
Osmania too might start COVID tests
Osmania Medical College would start testing samples collected from suspected patients of COVID-19 from Tuesday, if they receive a green signal from the National Institute of Virology, Pune. Dr Shashikala, OMC Principal, told Express, “If we work in two shifts, close to 100 samples can be tested in a day.
However, at present, we plan to function in a single shift. Each shift will have one research scientist, two technicians, two associate professors and two professors. We have already tested samples as per NIV guidelines for standardisation”
No huge crowds, cops tell function hall owners
The city police have served notices to managements and owners of function halls asking them to take precautionary measures and not allow huge crowds at marriage functions.
Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar said communities have been co-operating with the police.
“Yesterday, most establishments remained closed as directed by the government. Gathering for marriage function must not exceed 200,” he said