Following recommendations by the State’s COVID-19 Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), the Health Department will set up district-level technical expert committees (TECs) to provide technical guidance on COVID-19 management to the district administration.
According to a notification issues in this regard on Monday, the district-level committees will regularly interact with the State TAC and function under the overall guidance of TAC.
“From the experiences of two waves of COVID-l9 and as the third wave is anticipated by the experts in October-November, the TAC has recommended formation of district-level COVID-19 Technical Expert Committees (TEC) for providing technical guidance to the district administrations,” the notification stated.
The TECs, which will pursue guidelines issued by the State and Central governments, ICMR, AllMS, New Delhi, WHO and other organisations on a regular basis, will review the data at the district level and compare it with other districts, the State, and the national level on a regular basis.
The TECs will help the district administration by utilising the information obtained locally and facilitate public health actions and containment measures, the notification stated.
The TECs will comprise senior specialist in Public Health/ Community Medicine, District Surveillance Officer (DSO) apart from pulmonologists, senior physicians/ intensivists, senior paediatrician, senior obstetricians and senior microbiologists, among others.
Meanwhile, in another circular the Health Department has directed officials to intensify contact tracing in the border districts of Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Hassan, Mysuru, Kodagu, Chikkamangaluru, and Chamarajanagar that are reporting a test positivity rate between 3%-4%. The district officials have been directed to trace a minimum of 20 contacts for every positive case detected. While testing should be increased in these districts, vaccination of the vulnerable should also be expedited, the circular stated.
The districts officials have also been asked to ramp up health infrastructure in dsitricts where the test positivity rate is more than 2%.
