IndiaGovt’s contact tracing—a Herculean task

Govt’s contact tracing—a Herculean task

Date:

How it is being done?

Tawi, April 03

Robust contact tracing mechanism involves teams of various government departments and helps to a large extent to break the chain of Coronavirus positive patients with others and this helps us in slowing down the spread of covid-19, said experts on Friday.
They told that this mechanism starts with the “index patient or a zero patient” and an epidemiologist or disease detectives interview the patient about their movement and identify all close contacts.
“Index patient is even asked about to give a detailed history of where they have eaten, slept and bathed,” they said. “On the basis of answers of index patient, public health workers contact the close contacts of index patient accordingly and compile exhaustive lists of people potentially exposed to patient zero.”
An expert involved in the contact tracing program of J&K government said that these lists become the basis and public health workers contact each of these people to explain their risk, offer screening for the infection and conduct regular monitoring for symptoms of the infection.
“After identification, as a preventive measure, close contacts of index patient are asked to isolate themselves at home,” he said, wishing not to be named. “If one of these contacts turns out to be infectious person of enquiry, same cycle of identifying and reaching out to his contacts is repeated.”
Officials in health department told that at present robust mechanism is being used at the moment so that Covid-19 spread can't outpace contact tracing efforts, which otherwise can raise concerns and it will be very difficult to contain the pandemic.
“Contact tracing can cause inconvenience but in an outbreak it is vital to public health because it helps in making early possible diagnosis and getting more care to people who need it,” they said. “If communities won't cooperate with public health efforts, the value of contact tracing will take a dip and it can become impossible for contact tracing to keep pace with covid-19.”
Nodal Officer for Coronavirus in division Dr S M Qadri told that robust contact tracing process involves various departments including Health, ICDS and Police.
“Once a sample of a patient comes positive, their close contacts are traced and asked to go in hospital quarantine or home quarantine and accordingly 3 kms in radius from the point where positive patient was living is declared as Red zone. Entry and exit of people is blocked while as the adjoining areas outside 3 km radius are declared as buffer zone,” he said. Dr Qadri said that police helps in blocking entry and exit points of the area while as ICDS department helps us in tracing close contacts and health department educates people about the necessary precautions taken to avoid spread of covid-19.
“Besides these departments it involves many other people and agencies and this whole process is being done in quickest possible time and we call it Robust Contact Tracing Mechanism,” he added.
Pertinently, on Wednesday Principal Secretary Planning, Information department and the government spokesperson, Rohit Kansal said robust contact tracing led to detection of positive cases of Covid-19 in J&K. He had stated that 2000 people with contact history with positive cases. Many of the positive cases could be traced as a result of a vigorous contact tracing exercise undertaken by the administration, he said adding that due to robust tracing we are able to identify many cases including some that were asymptomatic.(KNO)

Northlines
Northlines
The Northlines is an independent source on the Web for news, facts and figures relating to Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh and its neighbourhood.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Share post:

Popular

More like this
Related

Modi govt eyes completing key FTAs with UK, Oman in first 100 days of probable third term

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is looking to prioritize completing...

In a first, Reliance acquires 26% stake in Adani project

New Delhi: In the first collaboration between rival billionaires,...

Security tightened in Central Delhi in view of INDIA bloc’s protest against Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest

New Delhi, Mar 29: Multiple layers of barricades have...