In the wake of their colleagues testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 at several places in Kerala, health and sanitation workers in the district are a worried lot and they feel that their request for testing might have fallen on deaf ears.
“As ASHA [Accredited Social Health Activist] workers, we are regularly in touch with people. Though we had raised a request to test all ASHA workers, that has not been done yet,” said Lissy Varghese, district secretary of the CITU-affiliated ASHA workers union. ASHA workers have tested positive in a few other districts, making it necessary to test all of them, in a situation in which so many people have been travelling into the State, she said.
Ward committees comprising junior public health nurses (JPHNs), health inspectors, ASHA workers, Kudumbashree and anganwadi workers, Janamaithri police and local elected representatives monitor people in quarantine. A police official who had been monitoring people in quarantine had recently tested positive.
“Most of us are regularly in contact with people within our health circles. While checking on the health of a quarantined person can be done over phone, we will have to intervene directly if problems arise among residents in an area,” said a Kochi Corporation health inspector. “We have heard that testing might be done among some of us. It should include the junior health inspectors and JPHNs who regularly contact people,” he said.
Mohanan, a sanitation worker in the Kaloor area, said that most of them still did not know where people were living in quarantine while they collected waste from corporation divisions. “Our details were collected earlier and we were told we would be tested. But that has not happened,” he said.
Sentinel surveillance
“Forty ASHA workers had been tested in the district as part of sentinel surveillance or if they were suspected to have been exposed. Health workers, among others, are randomly being tested,” said Dr. Mathews Numpelil, Ernakulam district programme manager, National Health Mission. “The strategy is to test people who are symptomatic or if doctors suspect cases among others. The idea is to avoid a sudden surge in cases and ensure that those who need tests are subjected to it,” he said.