Punjab app to check community spread

CHANDIGARH: In what is being touted as a first-of-its-kind initiative aimed at checking the community spread of Covid-19, Punjab on Friday launched mobile app ‘Ghar Ghar Nigrani’, to undertake house-to-house surveillance in the state as an ongoing process, till the elimination of the pandemic.
Launching the app through videoconference in the presence of health minister Balbir Singh Sidhu, chief minister Amarinder Singh said ASHA workers and community volunteers can be a tool in preventing its community spread.
Additional chief secretary for health Anurag Agarwal said the entire rural and urban population of Punjab above 30 years of age would be surveyed as part of the drive, which would also cover persons below the age of 30 having co-morbidity or influenza like illness or acute respiratory illness. It would not be a one-time activity but an ongoing process till the containment of thje pandemic, said Agarwal.
The survey would capture full medical conditions of a person for the previous one week and complete details of his co-morbidity. It would help the state develop an extremely important database to further plan its strategy and make targeted interventions for the community. The survey will give better direction to all state health programmes by providing input for MIS-based monitoring.
The app had been developed and designed in-house by the health department, and had been field tested in Patiala and Mansa.