NEW DELHI, April 16 - The Union government has adopted a special strategy to fight coronavirus, with specific instructions for the district and state authorities on how to go about with it, the Home Ministry said on Thursday.
The strategic approach for COVID-19 containment broadly involves defining the area of operation, applying perimeter control, delineating containment and buffer zones, a ministry statement said.
Besides, there is active search for cases, contact tracing, quarantine, clinical management and awareness generation among public.
The strategic approach for containment include defining area of operation and applying perimeter control, active search of cases, early isolation, contact listing and tracking, quarantine and follow up of contacts.
The government is also carrying out sample tests of all suspect cases, symptomatic contacts, asymptomatic direct and high risk contacts of a confirmed case and severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) cases, the statement said.
In the (hotspots red zones) districts or cities, there is focus following detection of a large number of cases or higher growth rate. The highest case load districts contribute to more than 80 per cent of cases in India.
In the hotspots of clusters and large outbreak areas, there has been localised increase in the incidence of COVID-19 cases occurring within a defined geographic area e.g., in a village, town, or city and the cases may not be epidemiologically linked.
If there is more than 15 cases, it implies progression of a small cluster or evolvement of multiple clusters. Less than 15 cases means it is happening in a limited area and cases are epidemiologically linked, the Home Ministry said.
The perimeter of mapped clusters are facilitated by existing geographic boundaries like roads, rivers, etc, and established clear entry and exit points. Only one or two arterial roads into containment zone will be kept open for essential services. All roads connecting the containment zone will be guarded by police or volunteers.
There will be no unchecked outward movement except for essential services, there will be no unchecked influx of population into the containment zone too.
All vehicular movement, public transport and personnel movement will be restricted. Details of people moving out of perimeter will be recorded and followed up with the Integrated Disease Surveillance program (IDSP), it said.
The perimeter control operations for the clusters and large outbreaks remain the same except for the enhanced scale of arrangements for large outbreaks. � PTI
