Survey and surveillance of cases related to ILI (influenza-like illness) and SARI (severe acute respiratory infection) will be crucial for district administrations once the districts come out of Covid-19 pandemic.

The country is using the network of ASHA and anganwadi workers to carry out these activities now.

The Uttara Kannada district administration is planning to supplement the activities of these workers with social reporting process by the citizens of the district itself. The administration will use the panchayat raj system for this purpose.

Harish Kumar, Deputy Commissioner of Uttara Kannada, told BusinessLine that the task force at the village panchayats in the district played a crucial role in the successful implementation of lockdown in the district.

The district administration will use the services of the task force network at the village panchayat level for survey and surveillance of ILI and SARI in the post-Covid scenario.

Social reporting

Stating that the district with a population of 16 lakh people has 232 village panchayats, he said each panchayat has a task force under the panchayat limits concerned. Around 80 per cent of the population can be reached with the task forces at village panchayat level.

He said these task forces will identify members for every 20 houses in the village. Each of these members nominated by the taskforce will reach out to the families allotted to him/her, and make them aware of the need to inform issues related to ILI and SARI to him/her.

Based on the feedback from these members, the task force will brief the village’s panchayat development officer (PDO) on the situations related to the survey and surveillance of ILI and SARI.

The PDOs will alert the health authorities and ASHA/anganwadi workers for further action, if they find cases related to ILI and SARI.

Such a focussed approach will help deploy the available resources of ASHA/anganwadi workers for tasks related to swab collection, etc. This approach will also help in the quick implementation of quarantine procedures, if they find positive cases in the village panchayat limit concerned.

He estimated that around 20,000 people are planning to come back to the district once the lockdown is lifted in the region.

Considering this, the district administration will strengthen 19 border check-posts for screening the people entering the district. Swabs will be collected from the symptomatic persons at the check-posts and such persons will be sent to hostels nearby for further processes.

The asymptomatic ones will be sent to their villages with a seal on their hands with the condition to be under home quarantine, along with their family members, for 14 days. The swabs of such people will be collected again for further tests.

Geo-fencing

Their mobile numbers will be geo-fenced to their home address. The authorities concerned will be alerted if they come out of their geo-fenced area. The members nominated by the village panchayat task force will also monitor such breaches and inform the authorities concerned.

FIR will be registered if such people are found violating the quarantine procedures, and they will he housed in government quarantine facilities at their own cost.

Harish Kumar hoped that the social reporting mode will help tackle issues related to ILI, SARI and quarantines in the post-Covid scenario also.

Uttara Kannada had witnessed 11 cases of Covid-19. Of them, 10 have been discharged.