Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Patiala
Health Department officials have identified more than 3,000 persons from Punjab, who recently travelled to China or had a brief halt over there. Those who reached the country via Nepal in the past one month are also under watch for coronavirus.
Help sought from police
Doctors are ensuring that every person is monitored and kept in isolation till the samples test negative. The SSPs have been instructed to help the visiting health officials in cases where suspected patients are refusing treatment.
Health officials
It is learnt that the department has asked district health officials to “take help from the police in cases where such suspected patients refuse isolation till samples are found negative”.
The health officials said all doctors with their rural and city teams were ensuring that every person was personally monitored and kept in isolation till the samples tested negative.
“The SSPs have been instructed by the government to extend help to the visiting health officials in cases where suspected patients are refusing treatment,” said a top health official.
Health teams, led by rural doctors, are visiting every village, examining each person and reporting any suspecting case. As many as 24 persons were kept in isolation and released later after their samples tested negative. Meanwhile, every district has been sent a list of patients along with their travel history.
“We are not taking any chances and all passenger details from the Chandigarh, Amritsar and Delhi airports are being shared with our teams. Doctors have been told to ensure that such samples are sent for testing,” Punjab, Health and Family Welfare Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said.
Sources in the Health Department said the doctors and medical staff were fearing dealing with such patients, given the fact that they were not fully equipped. “We can only work on all such cases if we get enough kits and material,” they said, adding that some patients in China infected so many health workers, one of whom was kept in isolation because of abdominal symptoms and the coronavirus was not initially suspected, but later four other patients in that ward also contracted the disease, presumably from the first patient.
Almost over 2,500 persons have been screened for the novel coronavirus on return from foreign countries, but till now “no symptomatic or suspected case has been reported.
In Patiala, 164 passengers, who had travelled to China, were screened. All samples (33) sent from the state tested negative, said Dr Gagan Grover, state programme officer, integrated disease surveillance programme.
“Isolation wards have been established at every district and government hospital, while screening is being done at the Amritsar and Mohali airports.
Meanwhile, Balbir Sidhu said all passengers coming from China to Punjab after January 15 were being contacted for taking samples. Twenty-three samples will be sent for testing at the National Institute of Virology in Pune. “In cases, where the patients with symptoms deny going to hospital despite having symptoms, we have written to the Police Department to ensure that all measures are adopted to keep such suspected patients in isolation,” Sidhu stated.
