Mobile swab collection units in Urban Health Centres soon, says Mayor Premananda Shetty

The Mangaluru City Corporation has appointed nodal officers in all 60 wards to fight Covid-19 effectively.

A meeting chaired by Mayor Premananda Shetty said that mobile swab collection units in all the Urban Public Health Centres will be introduced shortly.

The meeting has decided to take people to confidence and initiate measures to check the spread of Covid-19. The nodal officers will take measures in all the wards and the UPHC areas in the city. The nodal officers should take the corporators of the respective wards into confidence and take measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

All primary and secondary contacts of the positive cases should be identified, and they should be made to undergo RT-PCR tests to check further spread of Covid-19 infections. Stickers should be pasted in front of the houses that are declared as containment zones to inform people that the place is being monitored by the officials. The officials should ensure that those positive patients in home isolation do not move around freely.

The Mayor directed the nodal officers to provide the necessary infrastructure in PHCs for RT-PCR sample collection and vaccination. Pandals should be erected in front of the PHCs to protect people from sunshine and rain while waiting in a queue for the vaccines.

Seating arrangements should be made and drinking water should also be arranged at the PHCs. There should be separate areas for vaccination and RT-PCR sample collection in all the PHCs. Separate teams will be formed to collect swabs through mobile units in the city. Each PHC will be manned by two Home Guards.

Vaccination centres can be shifted to nearby schools if the urban health centres lack sufficient space. Asha workers from the Health department and multi-purpose workers (MPW) of the MCC will conduct a door-to-door survey to identify people with Covid-19 symptoms, the Mayor said.

'Give PPE kits separately'

MCC Commissioner Akshy Sridhar has appealed to the people to provide used PPE kits, masks or any bio-sanitary wastes separately to the waste collectors.

"Several infected patients are in home isolation. The MCC has the responsibility to dispose of the garbage collected from the houses scientifically. In the interest of the health of the civic workers, people should hand over the bio-wastes separately," he added.