BHUBANESWAR: Fearing possible spread of virus in slums during the second wave, the
Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (
BMC) on Friday deployed 405 frontline health workers in around 500 slums for carrying out daily surveillance.
The frontline workers include Ashas, anganwadi and mahila arogya samiti (
MAS) members. In the first phase, the BMC had successfully contained spread of virus in slums by active surveillance that included tracking travel history of people, health mapping and getting the suspects tested.
“The surveillance teams have been formed again to create re-awareness among the slum residents. There are vulnerable pockets, where we need to be watchful to keep the virus spread under check.
The teams this time, apart from tracking symptoms and travel history, will motivate them to go for tests and not hide symptoms. They will also tell them on how to remain isolated in case symptoms manifest or someone tests positive for
Covid,” said BMC nodal officer (Covid management) Suvendu Sahu.
Because of aggressive surveillance in slums and not allowing home quarantine of people coming in contact with positive persons, the cases in slums had reduced. The people were told to go for institutional quarantine.
This time, the BMC is yet to take a call on whether to completely disallow slum residents to remain in home isolation. “Home isolation aspect of slum residents is under consideration. We have already created two
Covid Care Centres at Dumduma and Patia to isolate infected people,” Sahu added.
Home isolation of slum residents was discouraged last year because they didn’t have enough accommodation facilities in their homes to remain isolated.
During the peak of the pandemic here in September and October 2020, the slum pockets accounted for 20% of total infections whereas in non-slum areas, the infections grew exponentially. Out of 11,853 total cases in the city till September last year, the slums had reported a total of 1,487 cases.
The BMC is also mulling over re-activating slum committees. The committee members help themselves and the communities as to how to adhere to the norms and not allow virus to spread tentacles.
There has been so far no restriction on entry of people from hotspot districts to the slums. On Friday, the city reported 150 fresh cases, up from 108 a day earlier, and 54 recoveries. With 32,157 recoveries and 250 deaths, the city now has 765 active cases. Total Covid count jumped to 33,193.