207 show symptoms in Sirmaur

Tribune News Service

Solan, December 6

As many as 207 persons in Sirmaur district reported suffering from Covid symptoms in the active case finding carried out under the Him Suraksha Campaign by the health staff from November 25.

Sirmaur Deputy Commissioner Dr RK Pruthi, who reviewed the progress of the campaign recently, said more than 40,000 people had been screened in the district till now of whom 207 had Covid symptoms, while 12 exhibited tuberculosis symptoms and 18 had leprosy symptoms. Their samples were being tested to treat them under the campaign.

Medical officials were facing paucity of staff in the Shillai and Sangrah blocks for completing the campaign. People were being screened for Covid, leprosy, tuberculosis and non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

Notably, NCDs include Parkinson’s disease, autoimmune diseases, strokes, heart diseases, cancer, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, etc., and comprise 64.5 per cent of the disease burden in the state and this population was vulnerable to Covid.

The DC directed the health officials to seek help of aanganwari supervisors in screening people where they faced paucity of staff. As many as 612 survey teams comprising two accredited social health activists and health workers were screening 5.82 lakh people in the district.

Since the state witnessed a steep hike in the Covid cases, the campaign had been initiated in all districts to identify the vulnerable population.