Community Surveillance Programme launched in Assam to contain COVID-19
The Government of Assam launched a Community Surveillance Program in 30 000 villages across the state to track patients with severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) and Influenza-like Illness (ILI) to detect any community transmission of COVID-19.
The frontline workers such as accredited social health activists (ASHAs), anganwadi workers (AWWs), auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs), multi-purpose workers (MPWs), field supervisors and Village Headmen are entrusted with the responsibility of conducting house-to-house survey for the identification of all SARI and ILI cases along with Japanese Encephalitis (JE), dengue, malaria and fever cases.
The surveillance programme launched on 7 May 2020 had covered 2237 villages reaching out to a population of 1 238 656 in a span of one month. As on 18 June 2020, the survey identified 29 230 fever cases, 249 SARI cases and 6439 ILI cases out of which 4552 samples were tested and two COVID-19 positive cases were identified.
“Through this active community surveillance program, the government tracked unreported cases of SARI and ILI in the wake of spike in COVID-19 cases. Altogether 1 800 doctors, 9 000 ANMs, 3 000 MPWs, 650 community health officers, 1 100 lab technicians and 30 000 ASHAs were involved in the drive. WHO Medical Officers built the capacity of frontline workers in infection prevention and control, identification and reporting of suspect cases and coordination with the district sample collecting teams. Additionally, we monitored the implementation and coordinated programme reviews at district and state level. Dr Subhajit Bhattacharjee, Sub-Regional Team Leader, Northeast Region and I supported in the review of the program by state functionaries,” shared Dr Puneet Mishra, Regional Team Leader, East Region, WHO India.
News
Feature stories
Documents