The district administration has rolled out an automated vehicle, Total India Remote Analysis Nirogya Abhiyan (Tiranga), to facilitate safer and people-friendly screening for SARS-CoV-2.
Tiranga enables health workers to avoid undue exposure to suspected patients during the screening process, says Vinay Goyal, Thiruvalla Subcollector, himself a medical doctor. A group of youngsters from the district, led by Dr. Goyal, are behind the initiative.
Tiranga is equipped with an infrared thermometer which can be operated from the fully closed vehicle, a microphone system for two-way communication, and a camera to take photos of Aadhaar card or any other identity card of the person to be screened. There are facilities for thermal scanning and collecting throat swabs of people without direct contact with them, Dr. Goyal says. The vehicle, carrying a medical volunteer, non-medical volunteer, field assistant and driver, can cover 500 people a day.
In sensitive areas
Dr. Goyal says Tiranga would be more useful in sensitive or trouble-prone areas where health workers in the field are at risk of facing violence. The system would be effective in containment and buffer zones, camps, and slums in particular. A questionnaire has been pasted on either side of the vehicle for local people to understand the questions in a better way.
Dr. Goyal says the idea has been envisaged by Vikas Yadav, his collegemate at the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences at Rohtak in Haryana. The total expense involved, excluding the cost of the vehicle, is ₹10,000 and Tiranga could be emulated at the national level against the backdrop of the growing number of cases, says Kurien Oommen, former District TB Officer.
District Collector P.B. Noohu says the experiment has turned out to be a success over the past one week.
