MP begins to check patients at district level

BHOPAL: In a bid to check the spread of COVID-19 in the state, Madhya Pradesh government has decided to conduct population-based district-level survey across the state starting this week.

Under this action plan, the surveying population will be divided into two groups – low risk population and high risk population. Under the low risk population including patients with non-influenza like illness, outpatient attendees and pregnant women are put, while second while second group comprises of high risk population including healthcare workers.

According to a proposal from National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 10 health facilities four private and six public will be selected in each district for this action plan.

The advisory issued by the Ministry of Health (MoH) stresses on the need to establish systematic surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 infection in all districts of the country. About 400 samples or 100 samples per week of high-risk health workers would be collected from each district. 50 Non-ILI OPD patients would be tested per week along with 50 pregnant women. In all 800 samples of COVID-19 would be collected for a month for the sampling.

The survey conducted under this plan is additional to the routine testing as per current guidelines. The survey is aimed to determine the prevailing coronavirus spread in each district for indicating the red, orange and green status of a district.

The samples taken via survey will be tested in a onetime pool of 25. In addition to throat/nasal swabs, blood samples would be collected for detecting IgG antibodies for ELISA testing Data collection and analysis.