Bhubaneswar: To further strengthen its measures in the fight against COVID-19 outbreak, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) started a mega door-to-door health screening drive in non-slum areas of Bhubaneswar from Saturday.
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A two-member team comprising of an AYUSH doctor, a female health worker or teacher will keep visiting each and every household under three zones of the civic body in order to collect information about any illness or flu-like symptoms or COVID-19 symptoms, travel history, information about elderly people and children.
As many as 42 teams have been deployed in the North and South-West zones each and 55 teams in South-East zone under BMC limits to carry out the massive health screening exercise. One team has to cover at least 100 households in each zone every day and the health screening will continue for three weeks, official sources said.
People surveying households are wearing protective equipments like face masks, gloves and using hand sanitisers. The teams have been provided with thermal guns to check a person’s temperature and pulse oximeters to monitor oxygen saturation level.
“It is a public welfare exercise and we urge the citizens to be truthful while providing information to the surveyors. The aim is to identify people with COVID-like symptoms, create a comprehensive database and get them tested to contain any probable spread,” said ADUPHO (Additional District Urban Public Health Officer) Dr CVSN Rao.
The information collected at the end of the exercise will be compiled and an excel sheet is prepared each evening. The data can then be used to map out areas that are reporting more cases of COVID-like symptoms and help in further surveillance activities.
PNN