As the country grapples with the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic, there is some news of early relief from the tribal-dominated state of Chhattisgarh, where nine out of the total 10 positive cases detected till now, have recovered and discharged from hospital.
On Monday, a resident of Korba was discharged from a hospital to become the ninth patient in the state to recover from the disease.
“Now there is only one active case, a resident of Korba admitted to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Raipur, and this patient is also quite stable in health,” Niharika Barik, Chhattisgarh health secretary told THE WEEK.
Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel also tweeted to share the information on recovery of the ninth patient. “Only one more remaining,” the chief minister tweeted.
Among the states that reported very few cases, Chhattisgarh has managed to contain the pandemic well till this point of time. But the health department is not breathing easy. “It is still too early to get relieved and we are keeping no stones unturned to ensure that the infection is contained as much as possible,” the health secretary said.
Barik, talking in detail with THE WEEK, said that the strategy that has till now worked for Chhattisgarh is three pronged—aggressive quarantining of the suspected cases after tracking them, sampling of all the suspected cases for tests and monitoring the home quarantined persons aggressively with public support.
“As of now we have 70,000 persons all across the state under home quarantine and the district authorities are monitoring every one of them closely,” she said.
The health secretary said that Chhattisgarh had started screening those returning from foreign countries well ahead of the other states in early February. All these persons were listed out and quarantined. Others were asked to report themselves.
“People in the neighbourhood of such persons also helped in reporting. We soon got four suspects who had returned from the United Kingdom and realized that the government of India was not screening those coming in from the UK till mid-March. We raised a hue and cry in a meeting of health secretaries and screening of persons returning from the UK was introduced in third week of March,” the health secretary said.
She mentioned that soon a list of 96 people who returned from the UK was compiled and later the list swelled to over 180. Six of them tested positive. All related to those returning from foreign countries have been quarantined. Similarly after receiving list of Jamaat attendees, all such persons were screened, the religious places where they stayed sanitized and samples collected. Till now only one Jamaat related person has tested positive.
She said that even now a close watch is being kept on the quarantined people so that they do not violate the norms and also people are being asked to come out and let know their travel and contact details. “We will continue screening, testing and quarantining aggressively,” Barik said.
According to the health bulletin released by the Chhattisgarh government on Monday evening, five cases from Raipur, one each in Durg, Rajnandgaon, Korba and Bilaspur have been discharged after recovering.
Till now samples of 2303 persons have been tested and 2281 have turned out positive. Tests of 12 samples are under process.
