GUWAHATI: Assam state government is set to start up a massive program to capture all fever, influenza and respiratory cases across the state by 900 medical teams.
Over the next 5 weeks, 18,000 doctors and 43,000 healthworkers will comb 25,000 villages and will reach close to 3 crore people to hunt people infected with COVID-19, Influenza, Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI), Japanese Encephalitis (JE) and Malaria.
Starting today, i.e. May 11, the ambitious coronavirus hunt will be carried out simultaneously in 29 out of Assam's 33 districts in which 5 of the districts are serving as the state's regional hubs for COVID-19 tests.
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The Assam Community Surveillance Program for COVID-19 will also include door-to-door survey, screening and collection of blood samples.
Assam health minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, speaking to media said, "Assam has developed an innovative plan for ramping up testing in rural areas."
"The teams will go from village to village, the local healthworkers will organize the villagers for the tests... This way, we will cover 25,000 villages and with each passing day, we will ramp up testing," the minister added.
Meanwhile, the deputy commissioners in every district shall monitor, supervise and co-ordinate the activity, which would involve 1,8000 doctors and more than 43,000 healthcare workers and technicians.
