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Hubballi: As the entire world is battling to contain the spreading of contagious novel Coronavirus, and all the governments pouring blood, sweat and tears to stop the pandemic from further spreading.
Few villages in the Dharwad district remained unaffected by this virus. According to the data provided by Dharwad Zilla Panchayat, 33 villages remain unaffected by the novel Coronavirus, all thanks to the efforts of the district administration and the aggressive measures and efforts poured by the officials and staff ensuring that the populace of these villages remains unaffected by the contagious virus.
Not only these 33 villages, but the Dharwad district administration is also going an extra mile to make all the 354 villages ‘Corona free’ and as a part of that they have launched Corona Mukta Grama (Corona free village) initiative.
ON A MISSION TO MAKE VILLAGES COVID FREE
As a part of aggressive measures to curb the spreading of the virus in the villages, the health care workers, sanitization workers, members of the village task force (formed to curb the spreading of the virus) working in tandem.
Starting from sanitizing the streets of the villages, health care workers visiting door to door to find symptomatic patients at the earliest stage, providing Corona kit for the home isolation patients. Shifting the mildly symptomatic patients to the nearest isolation centres and adopting the aggressive method in collecting samples of the suspected patients are the few measures the Dharwad District Zilla Panchayat has adopted to bend the infection curve in the villages.
Speaking to hubliexpress.com Zilla Panchayat CEO Dr Susheela B told that “In Dharwad district, 33 villages so far have not reported a single case of Covid-19 infection. These villages are in Kalghtagi, Dharwad, Navalgund and Kundagol taluk. These villages are not connected to urban or peri-urban areas.”
“In the second wave, villages connected either to urban or peri-urban areas reported most cases. Few villages where not a single case of infection reported the villagers with the help of community participation ensured they remain unaffected, and they strictly followed Covid-19 appropriate behaviour in their villages. Major credit should go to them as well. This apart, the administration is continuously educating them, and we ensure that they remain unaffected by the virus and extra precautions are being taken,” she said.
“We had formed Gram Panchayat Taskforce in March only, to prevent spreading of the virus in the village. But after the announcement of lockdown, reverse migration had started, hence there was an increase in the positive cases in the rural areas, but we started isolating those returned to the villages from big cities and adopted testing, tracing and treatment method to bring down the infection rate in the villages,” informed the ZP CEO.
ISOLATION CENTRES TO TAKE CARE OF INFECTED VILLAGERS
The administration already in 92 Gram Panchayats established Covid-19 Isolation Centres, and the mildly symptomatic and asymptomatic patients are getting treatment there.
Doctors from KIMS and SDM Hospitals visiting these centres twice a day and check their vitals and prescribe medicines.
The inmates are being provided nutritious food and care and to beat the boredom of the inmates’ books, newspapers, magazines provided in these centres. The patients learn Yoga, meditation during their stay in the centres. They do exercise, and they sometimes play indoor and outdoor games, said Dr Susheela.
“In April, of the total positive cases reported in the district, 15 per cent used to be reported from rural parts, this went up due to reverse migration and some other reasons but because of aggressive measures, the infection rate came down to 10 per cent now, and we are confident that in a week we start announcing Corona free villages.” Said Dr Susheela, who is also a medical graduate.
“Mobile swab collection vans are collecting swabs in the rural areas, of the total test conducting in the district, 60 per cent of swabs are being collected from rural areas, and we found that there was a drastic drop in the positivity rate,” she said.
