New village admin set-up comes handy for AP in fighting Covid-19

The newly set up system of village secretariats and gram volunteers has now become an effective force in fighting coronavirus in Andhra Pradesh.

In a first of its kind move by any State, the State government has recruited nearly 1.50 lakh village secretariats and volunteers to strengthen village administration and grass root delivery in a record time of three months.

According to Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, these volunteers have become a source of support in the fight against the dreaded virus.

“It is through these volunteers and village secretariats that we have been able to collect data throughout Andhra Pradesh,’” Reddy said in a media interaction on corona.

According to a bulletin released by the Health Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh, so far, 13,301 foreign returnees have been identified for observation by the door to door survey across households by village secretariats and other officials. Out of these, 11.026 are under home isolation. About 2,200 had already completed 28 days of observation.

Out of 178 samples tested, results are awaited for 22 patients. Six tested positive and 150 showed negative results.

App to alert on arrivals

To augment medical infrastructure, the Government is setting up an isolation facility with 100 beds in every constituency. Each district headquarters will have 200-300 tertiary care treatment facilities dedicated for Covid-19 patients.

It has developed a software app to notify arrival of all foreigners in the State so that they can be tested and quarantined to arrest the spread of the virus. It will be made available sometime today to all, according to officials.

As on Monday morning, there are six Covid-19-affected patients in the State, the latest case being a 49-year-old woman in Visakhapatnam, a close contact of another patient who returned from abroad few days ago.

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