Mobile teams to collect samples, new helpline launched
LUCKNOW: After spike in coronavirus cases, the state health department has sent mobile medical units to rural and urban areas to collect samples of people suffering from consistent fever and cough.
The department has also launched a new helpline- 1800180-5146 for the ASHA workers, ANMs and private pharmacists running retail chemist stores to alert the department if they find a person with coronavirus symptoms moving in the area. The chemist will submit details of the customers visiting the stores to purchase cough syrups or medicine for fever.
Earlier, the health department launched a helpline 1800-180-5145 for tele consultation with the doctors. It had also established control room in the districts to collect information about the infected people. The health department teams will track the people who have Covid symptoms as well as those who have purchased cough and fever medicine. The team will collect their samples for laboratory tests. Addressing a press conference, principal secretary, health and family welfare, Amit Mohan Prasad said fearing stigma the people having Covid symptoms were not visiting the hospitals for tests.
During the investigation, the health department teams detected that instead of getting themselves examined, the infected people took medicine. The family members rushed the patient to the hospital only after the condition started deteriorating. The chance of the infection spreading among other members of the family loomed large, he said. In Lucknow, Agra, Ghaziabad, NOIDA and Firozabad it came to light that an infected member in the family spread the infection to other members. In some cases, single infected person spread the infection among 6 to 10 members of the family.
The health department has called upon the people to get their sample tested immediately if they have symptoms of the coronavirus infection. The test and treatment is free in the hospitals.
The people could call ambulance service 108 to take them to the hospital, Prasad said.
The health department has also decided to send mobile medical units to collect the sample of the suspected coronavirus infected patients. A mobile unit will collect from minimum three localities in the urban areas and three villages in the rural areas. The samples would be sent to laboratories for test of the Sars -CoV-2 infection. The focus will be on localities and villages where the migrant workers returned, he said.