Behind the closed doors and windows of a van, sit three people, two of them asking questions to a person standing outside. They don’t see each other, except through the window glass, but questions on fever symptoms and travel history get asked, identity cards are photographed and temperatures checked.
This is the newly-launched Tiranga initiative, by the Pathanamthitta district administration, to make it easier to screen people for COVID-19, without the risk of exposure.
“We have been running the vehicle on a trial basis for three days now,” says Thiruvalla sub-collector Dr Vinay Goyal, who is also a doctor of medicine. The idea, he says, is to reduce the risk of exposing health workers to all sorts of conditions.
Inside the vehicle is a medical volunteer, a non-medical volunteer and a driver.
“This way, they do not come in contact with the people they screen. There have also been issues of health workers being abused in some places in the north of India, when they visit houses for screening,” Vinay says. The vehicle, called Tiranga – Total India Remote Analysis Nirogya Abhiyaan – is painted amid the tricolour on the vehicle so that people would immediately recognise it as an initiative of the government and leave the health workers alone.
Screening will be done in containment zones and buffer zones and in the camps for migrant workers and destitute people. “A containment zone covers up to three kilometers of an area where a person has tested positive for COVID-19. Buffer zone is the next five kilometers,” the sub-collector explains.
Dr Vinay Goyal
The concept came from another doctor he knew— Dr Vikas Yadav. “Other than exposure, there is also the issue of massive shortage of protective equipment. This is also the peak of summer so being outdoors in long stretches can be quite tiresome.”
The vehicle is equipped with thermal scanning— an infrared thermometer mounted on the bonnet, a two-way microphone system by which people inside and outside the vehicle can talk to each other, a mobile camera that will click photos of their identity cards and so on.
For those with high temperatures or any other symptoms of COVID-19 and for those who have travelled outside Kerala in the last 45 days, the team advises isolation of 14 days.
Once the questions are asked and the symptoms, if any, are noted, the necessary information is passed to the nearest Primary Health Centre (PHC). Follow-ups on those with symptoms or travel history would then be done by the PHC.
“These vehicles are called RSV – 1 (Rapid Screening Vehicle - 1), which will be primarily used for screening people. The idea is that for every four RSV-1 vehicles, there will be an RSV-2. This second vehicle will be used for collecting samples, once we get the required approval. The vehicle is in the making now,” Vinay says.
The initiative has the support of district collector PB Nooh, who has been able to arrange funds from the State Disaster Management Fund. Vinay hopes that the concept could be replicated in other parts of the state as well as the country.