Berhampur: The Ganjam administration on Wednesday clarified that health screening and not testing of those who have recovered from the infection, will be done from Thursday (August 20) to identify post-COVID health issues.
From tomorrow onwards our medical team will start health screening of discharged patients to check if they have any health issues, including breathlessness and body, and treat them accordingly, it tweeted.
The exercise would be conducted from August 20 to 26.
The cured persons will also be requested to donate plasma, it added.
The clarification came amid media reports that an exercise will be launched to test those cured for possible reinfection.
Collector Vijay Kulange has also issued a standard operating procedure (SOP) for ‘Mission follow up of COVID-19 cured cases’.
1. A meeting must be conducted by the Commissioner/BDO for timely completion of the screening campaign and other logistics arrangement.
2. The screening campaign period is fixed from August 20-26
3. This team will visit each household of COVID-19 discharged cases of their assigned area and conduct health screening.
4. The Superintendent concerned may utilize AMO and HMO deputed from other districts for this purpose and issue an order at their level.
5. If the RRT observe symptoms of COVID -19 among those cured, it will report to the Block Superintendent and BDO concerned on the same day.
6. If any serious symptoms are noticed, the patient should be referred to COVID Hospital immediately with intimation to the BDO, Superintendent and Commissioner concerned.
7. Only those symptomatic cases, who have completed three months from the date of discharge, are to be referred for COVID-19 test and the outcome to be reported immediately to BDO and Superintendent concerned.
8. During the screening, the RRT will check oxygen level, pulse, temperature and identify other symptoms as per the clinical examination.
9. The BDO and Commissioner will appoint supervisors to monitor the screening campaign.
10. The Commissioner/BDO in tum should send the consolidated report in excel format to the District COVID Cell functioning at DRDA, Chhatrapur.
11. The team consists of ANM, ASHA (wherever available), AWW & AYUSH MO other staff as decided by Commissioner, BDOs & EOs will conduct screening.
12. The team must adopt Infection Prevention Controls (IPC) measures during screening. All other protocols given in the previous SOP of the screening campaign are to be followed.
