Kerala’s efforts in containing the spread of COVID-19 in Kasaragod were highlighted by officials during the Health Ministry briefing held on Saturday. Joint Secretary of the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal led the media through the presentation that showed the COVID-19 containment plan executed in Kasaragod.
Kasaragod, which has reported the highest number of COVID-19 cases at 168, saw two waves of a COVID-19 outbreak: one in February when a person with travel history to China tested positive, and the second was when a group of expatriates returned from West Asia (especially from Arabian Peninsula) to their homes on March 16.
"There were 168 positive cases in total in the district, of which 113 have recovered. The positive aspect is that because the focus was on clinical management, no deaths have been reported. Today, 55 active cases are there which are being monitored properly,” Lav Agarwal said.
One of the challenges that the district faced was that there was a large population of foreign returnees, around 15.38%, Agarwal added. Moreover, since Kasaragod is a border district and is geographically distant from major cities, many amenities were located far away. Third, a lot of people who returned en masse had come via different routes (railway and road), and it was difficult to trace all their contacts.
However, Lav Agarwal said that the district took a strategic method to counter COVID-19, including appointing a special officer to coordinate and monitor the functioning of district administration.
“They focused on labs, setting up of hospitals and even appointed Incident Commanders. They home quarantined those with travel history and ensured social distancing with the ‘Break the Chain’ initiative. All red colour containment zones were identified, drones were used for surveillance and all those who were in home quarantine were tracked via geospatial tracking. To ensure there is no dearth of essentials, home deliveries were started at a district level,” Lav Agarwal told the media.
A total of 17,373 primary and secondary contacts were traced and quarantined. “The focus was on collecting daily samples and for that, testing labs were started, he pointed out.
COVID-19 care centres with 709 beds created and primary, secondary and high-risk contacts, including those above 60 years old, were sent to isolation centres. “One hospital was operationalised within four days and household surveys were conducted with the help of ASHA workers and health inspectors,” he added.
The district administration in Kasaragod also provided free food kits to the needy and kept a check on black-marketing, hoarding and price rise. Shelter homes and community kitchens were set up so that the poor and homeless do not face difficulties. They were also given a health checkup every alternate day, Lav Agarwal added.
For the last few days, Kerala has been ‘flattening the curve’ of COVID-19 cases and on Sunday, four new cases of COVID-19 were reported. On two occasions before this, Kerala has reported only one new case. The number of those recovered in the state is also high as compared to the number of cases — 257 of the total 399 cases in Kerala have recovered. The state has seen only three deaths till date.
Kerala also found a special mention at the daily press briefing on April 17. “Kerala has focused on how to delineate areas, on effective contact tracing, on maintaining quarantine process, as well as clinical management. This is leading to success at the ground level,” Lav Agarwal said.