BERHAMPUR: Even as cases continue to rise in Ganjam district, management of Covid-19 remains a cause of concern. The administration has appointed 314 qualified and trained health care workers on contract and a daily wage of Rs 1,000 each under the COVID management programme in the district. They include 244 nurses, 30 pharmacists and 20 laboratory technicians and radiographers. Their services are not being utilised fully as they are deployed at the COVID hospitals in the district on rotation and shift basis. Besides, testing of swab samples to remains inadequate in the district. Swab collection centres have been opened at Chikiti, Hinjili, Polasara, Aska, Bhanjanagar, Khalikote, Chhatrapur, the City hospital and MKCG Medical College and Hospital.
A mobile team has also been deployed to collect the samples as and when required. The samples collected from the centres are sent to the office of the CDMO for culture and then sent to MKCG for testing. While on an average, 50 samples are collected from the city and its suburbs, 200 samples are collected from other towns daily. The samples are tested using the RT-PCR and Truenat system. While it takes around 180 minutes to test 36 samples through RT-PCR, the time taken by Tuenat is 50 minute. Both the systems function round the- clock and 250-300 samples are tested daily.
After completion of tests, the reports are sent to RMRC at Bhubaneswar for confirmation. If found positive, they are sent to the Health and Fami ly We l f a r e department. The process takes around 3-4 days and to make matters worse, with the samples being tested only at MKCG, several samples are tested days after they are collected by the centres. As per records, 14,055 cumulative samples were received by the hospital from April 4 to July 12. While 13,480 samples were tested during the period, the rest are yet to be examined. The total number of samples also include 291 invalid ones. In a bid to ramp up testing, the district administration has introduced mobile testing centres which have been moving in rural areas and localities within Berhampur Municipal Corporation (BeMC) limits.
Violation rampant
Berhampur: Violation of Covid- 19 norms has become rampant in the district. What’s worse, those entrusted with the task of enforcing the norms are flouting them with impunity. A couple of days back, a naib sarpanch and 10 others of Dengapadar in Polasara block were arrested for organising a religious function where social distancing and mask wearing norms were flouted. A similar incident was reported from Parinuagaon village in Khallikote on Monday where a large gathering participated in a function held at the local temple. However, the organisers fled the spot even before the police reached the spot. The food, cooked for around 1,000 people, was buried and police returned empty-handed.