Containment zones in Hyderabad dip as active cases go down

HYDERABAD: The number of containment zones in the city have dropped from nearly 100 a fortnight back to 63 now, while there are less than 100 containment zones in the remaining parts now, say state say health authorities. While is a clear indication of active cases going down and spread of clusters being controlled, in the latest health directive, authorities have instructed health officials to comb every single household in a locality in case of a small outbreak.
“Even if there is a small cluster, every household in the vicinity and in rural areas, the entire village and mandals are being tested.The idea is to not wait for people to develop symptoms and come to our centres but we go to the people and begin early identification of cases,” said Dr G Srinivasa Rao, director of public health, Telangana, speaking about the precautionary measures being taken up.

District and even mandal level authorities have been asked to reach out to high-risk groups like elderly people, people with co-morbid conditions like diabetes, hypertension, cardiac issues, kidney issues and others on immunosuppressants for periodic check-ups.
“Since we have a registry of such patients enrolled under various schemes of ours, we are reaching out to these people, so that they are tested every 10-15 days. Also, in addition to rythu bazaars and markets, commercial establishments, government and private offices are also being targeted for testing,” added the official.
For this purpose, testing kits have been stocked up at all district and mandal headquarters regularly. While currently, over 95% of the tests happening in the state are rapid antigen tests, the government is likely to focus more on these tests in the future as well for quick identification of cases and early beginning of treatment.