Centre on Saturday singled out Kasaragod in Kerala for special praise for handling of coronavirus outbreak in the district and detailed the effective implementation of various containment measures despite the various unique challenges it faced.
Health ministry joint secretary Lav Agarwal said that 113 coronavirus positive patients out of a total of 168 cases in the district have already been cured due to proper clinical management and underlined that not even one infected person had died to highlight the success of the Kasargod model of coronavirus cluster containment strategy.
“Out of 168 total Covid-19 cases in Kasargod, Kerala, 113 have already been cured; most importantly, due to proper clinical management, not even one infected person died. Remaining active cases, too, are being monitored well,” Agarwal said.
Agarwal noted the peculiarities and challenges faced by Kasargod to put this success story in the correct perspective. He pointed out that a large percentage of the district’s population lives abroad, which resulted in two waves of infections, first in Feb from a China-returned student and the second in mid-March after the return of individuals from the middle-east. The district is geographically distant from major cities and is farthest from the state capital and to add further to its woes, it was difficult to track expatriates that landed in large numbers at different airports before heading home.
Agarwals praised Kerala’s strategy to appoint a special state officer in Kasaragod for seamless coordination. This special officer coordinated and monitored the functioning of district administration including between the line departments on the field and secretariat level.
Kasaragod’s use of geospatial tracking through drones of people put in home quarantine, done under a highly effective campaign named #BreakTheChain for promoting social distancing was also praised. Agarwal said the district formed a core team of ‘Incident Commanders’ to attend to all Covid-19 related emergencies. Sec-144 was imposed in the entire district and all those with travel history were home quarantined. Identification of containment cluster zones through red colour coding was done and home delivery of essentials in these containment clusters was ensured.
Highlighting the scale of the district’s response to the outbreak, Agarwal said that more than 17,300 contacts of positive cases were traced and quarantined followed by aggressive and quick testing, household surveys using ASHAA workers and health inspectors and setting up of Covid Care Centres and ICU facilities including operationalisation of Kasaragod medical college in just four days.
One major distinct intervention of the district’s Covid-19 management was seen in quarantining of all primary and secondary contacts and also high-risk cases- those above 60 years of age—in isolation centres to prevent any chance of further transmissions.
The district, Centre noted, was also not behind in social welfare initiatives to ensure poor and needy got free food and regular health checkups through ‘Care for Kasaragod’ initiative that saw the constitution of ‘Jana Jagratha Samithis’ at ward level for free food distribution to the poor and migrant workers. Shelter home and community kitchens were also started for this purpose.
The district was also praised for keeping an effective check on black marketing, hoarding and price rise.
“We got very positive and encouraging results when people returned (in Kasargod) after being cured of Covid-19. We have to work together in fighting this battle, in a whole-of-society whole-of-government approach,” Agarwal added.
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