The Centre on Sunday released a slew of guidelines for monitoring the Covid menace which has now spread to peri-urban, rural, and tribal areas as well.
The guidelines come a day after PM Narendra Modi directed government officials to make a distribution plan for oxygen supply to rural areas, to focus on testing, including door-to-door testing, and assist health care workers in rural areas.
Emphasizing the need to enable communities, strengthen primary level healthcare infrastructure, the ministry of health and family welfare released the set of rules to be followed by the rural areas to curb the virus spread.
Among the various rules, the health ministry guidelines asked every village to ensure active surveillance for influenza-like illness/severe acute respiratory infections(ILI/SARI) periodically by ASHA workers with help of the Village Health Sanitation and Nutrition Committee (VHSNC).
It further mandated the community health officer to monitor and look out for the seriousness of the infection by teleconsultation and recommend cases with comorbidities and low oxygen saturation to higher centres.
“These patients should be counseled to isolate themselves till test results are available. Those asymptomatic but having history of high-risk exposure to Covid patients (exposure of more than 15 mins without a mask within 6 feet distance) should be advised quarantine and tested as per ICMR protocol,” the ministry further said in the guidelines.
The guidelines also focused on the need for contact tracing adding that those who have tested Covid positive should be allowed to quarantine at home by following the said guidelines.
Addressing the dearth of Covid medical equipment, the guidelines also suggested that thermometers and pulse oximeters should be given to the families in the rural areas on loan and follow-up visits should be undertaken by frontline worker/volunteers/teacher following required infection prevention practices.
“A home isolation kit shall be provided to all such cases which should include required medicines such as Paracetamol 500 mg, Tab. Ivermectin, cough syrup, multivitamins (as prescribed by the treating doctor) besides a detailed pamphlet indicating the precautions to be taken, medication details, monitoring proforma for the patient condition during the home isolation, contact details in case of any major symptoms or deterioration of health condition and the discharge criteria,” read the guidelines.
As opposed to the First Covid wave where rural areas contributed to the soaring Covid numbers, experts say the impact of the second wave could be even deadlier in rural areas, where health care infrastructure is traditionally weaker and fewer medical facilities are available.
About 73% of the country’s population also resides in rural districts, reported Hindustan Times. India logged 3.11 lakh fresh Covid cases in the last 24 hours, taking the overall caseload to 2.46 crore. The country recorded 4,077 deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of deaths to 2.7 lakh.
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