GUWAHATI, June 9 - The National Health Mission, Assam will kick-off the second phase of the community surveillance programme in the State from Wednesday.
Earlier, in the last part of April, the NHM had initiated the programme across the State in a bid to prevent community transmission of COVID-19. In this regard, with the help of accredited social health activists (ASHA) and multi-purpose workers the department conducted house-to-house surveillance for Severe-Acute-Respiratory-Infections (SARI) and Influenza-Like-Illness (ILI) across the State.
Officer on special duty (NHM) Pomi Barua told The Assam Tribune that the initiative has got an overwhelming response from all section of the society and is playing a key role in sensitizing common people about the COVID-19.
According to a source at the NHM, over 31,400 localities and a population of more than two crore were touched during the first phase of the programme.
The main objective of the programme was to detect persons with illness and to carry out house-to-house awareness on how to stay away from the COVID-19. It also covered surveillance for malaria, dengue and Japanese encephalitis.
Officials informed that in the first phase of the drive, to detect malaria infection, around 24,000 people were tested with rapid diagnostic kits and around 23,000 blood samples were collected. Among them, three people tested positive for plasmodium vivax and four people have been tested positive for plasmodium falciparum. Moreover, eight cases of Japanese encephalitis were also detected during the exercise.
Pomi Barua stated that the department has decided to start the second phase of the surveillance programme, as a number of people returned from outside the State to their native villages or localities of Assam. Moreover, the second phase will also concentrate on the flood-related health hazards or water-borne diseases like diarrhoea, for which the field workers will distribute ORS packets to every household.
The second phase of the exercise will be conducted with a different set of medical personnel.
