Assam to test symptomatic people with fever, 7,782 identified

Assam is going to test all people suffering from fever and so far 7,782 such people have been found after health teams visited around 10,000 villages, Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Tuesday.

Sarma said that these people do not have coronavirus, but as they are symptomatic, their samples would be tested as per protocol.

"Our doctors and health staff would visit 20,000 more villages to identify the people suffering from fever," he said while briefing the media.

The Assam government on May 7 launched an ambitious community-based surveillance for Influenza-like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI) across the state to contain the possible spread of Covid-19.

Under the Assam Community Surveillance Plan (ACSP), health workers including doctors would go to the total of 30,000 villages to identify the ILI and SARI cases in the villages. ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activists) and MPW (Multi-Purpose Workers) along with other health staff would be the front line workers to undertake this.

The Health Minister said that "strict quarantine" would be maintained for people returning to Assam from other parts of India amid the easing of lockdown restrictions.

"Centre has prescribed a quarantine period of 9-14 days for those coming in from other states."

He said that when a person is asked for quarantine at home, the entire house would be considered as a 'containment zone' and the entire family would have to stay indoors for the duration of the quarantine period.

"This way the disease would not spread in the society."

Sarma said that the Guwahati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) would be opened for the admission of the new patients from Friday. The GMCH was closed for new patients after a doctor, who is also a postgraduate student at the GMCH, tested Covid-19 positive on May 7.

According to the minister, so far 63 Covid-19 positive cases were found in Assam but currently only 22 of them are active, while 39 people were discharged from hospitals after they recovered and two people died, including a 16-year-old girl in Guwahati who was found to be infected after her death.

( With inputs from IANS )