Assam to start door-to-door surveillance to track, test and tackle Covid-19

With Covid-19 cases gradually going up in rural areas, Assam is launching a community surveillance project from Tuesday under which health workers will visit door-to-door to track, isolate and treat those testing positive for the virus.

Health workers will carry out tests based on data provided by survey teams who will keep track of the spread of Covid-19. Apart from tracking and testing people for Covid-19, the team will provide lessons and spread awareness about Covid-19-appropriate behaviour among the masses in order to check further spread of the virus.

The teams will also maintain a database of those who came back from outside following the second wave of Covid-19, which started in April first week.

Assam at present has over 52,000 active Covid-19 cases and the state has been reporting over 5,000 new cases and 80 to 90 deaths daily for the past two weeks.

Assam panchayat and rural development minister Ranjeet Kumar Dass told reporters in Guwahati on Monday that although the infection was still more in the urban areas, the number was going up in the rural areas.

He said out of 2,197 panchayats and 479 village councils (in Sixth Scheduled areas), only 403 panchayats and 131 village councils were found to be free from Covid-19, as of Monday.

"I am very much hopeful that with active participation and cooperation of everyone, we will be able to declare entire rural areas of Assam as Covid-19-free in near future," Dass said.

The department is also setting up war rooms at the panchayat level.