For ramping up the capacity of proper collection of samples, the Ananatpur district administration has launched 18 mobile collection centres going round various mandals in the red zones and potential danger zones, according to District Collector Gandham Chandrudu
Each vehicle has a trained paramedic along with two other staff, who get leads from Primary Health Surveillance Team with an ASHA worker and Volunteer recording the health condition of people in all households. Wherever needed, a doctor from the PHC visits the house and summons the van for sample collection, he said.
Special officer
Almost all the house surgeons, who had been kept out of their duties and quarantined after they came in contact with a COVID-19 positive colleague, tested negative and have been allowed to join back duties.
Assistant Collector M. Jahnavi has been appointed Special Officer for the COVID-19 operations at the district headquarters hospital.
Mr. Chandrudu said there was no scarcity of PPEs with 7,073 available now and sufficient for the next 15 days. More supplies were coming everyday from Bengaluru and 17,000 N-95 masks were also available, he added.
The KIMS Saveera, YSR Hospital and RDT Bathalapalli had been designated as COVID19 Hospitals with no other type of case entertained there.
Testing capacity
Meanwhile, the district is all set to take a quantum leap in testing COVID-19 samples with the ICMR-approved modified TrueNAT molecular test that is usually used for diagnosis of drug-resistant TB (rifampicin).
This test has been going on on a trial basis at the Rural Development Trust’s Bathalapalli Bio-Safety Chambers for the past couple of days, and from Monday these ‘presumptive tests’ will decrease the load on the VDRL laboratory at the Government Medical College’s Microbiology Laboratory.
The laboratory had 523 samples to be tested by Sunday evening and it has a capacity to test 90 samples a day, Mr. Chandrudu said. While all positive cases in the presumptive test in the TrueNAT machines would be referred to the VDRL laboratory, the negative ones would be left out.
