Door-to-door campaign in villages to contain spread

Ruchika M Khanna

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 14

Amid talks of an impending third wave of the pandemic and a high case fatality rate (CFR) in rural areas, the Punjab Government has stepped up its efforts to stop the transmission of Covid in villages.

The CFR in rural areas of Punjab is 2.6 and in urban areas 0.69. The positivity rate in rural areas is 22 per cent, much lower than that in urban areas (78 per cent). The low positivity rate in rural areas is because of low testing.

Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said the main problem in rural areas was people were not wary of the pandemic. “In most cases, people getting symptoms are visiting medical practitioners, who, we have found, have been treating patients for typhoid. When the patient becomes serious, they are brought to the hospitals, by then it is too late, leading to a high CFR in rural areas,” he said.

The minister said they now have a concrete plan in place. He said, “Teams of the Health Department along with local influential political leaders will start a door-to-door campaign in all villages, checking on all symptomatic persons and conducting random Covid tests. We will home isolate most positive persons with mild symptoms.”

He said NGOs and religious deras, too, were being roped in to create bed capacity and special wards were being created in all civil hospitals to treat post Covid complications.