COVID19 deceased persons contacts tracing became problematic

Amaravati: The officials in the State are unable to trace the contact history of the COVID19 patients, despite deploying more than 2.5 lakh employees and Volunteers.

Missing links between the deceased COVID19 patients and their primary contacts became a big headache to the State government and its posing threat to the health and safety of the people. Government, yet to establish the contact person details of at least three patients who died with the virus within hours after joining in the hospitals. There is a total of six coronavirus patients died in the State.

For instance, a 45-year-old male patient in Guntur died in the hospital on April 7, within just two hours after his admission. In this case, the doctors could not even get confirmed that he was suffering from the virus since the results came after his death.

In another case from Kurnool, a 45-year-old patient joined in the hospital on April 1 and died on April 3, who did not have any travel history. That means, he affected with the virus through the local transmission. In his case also, the officials were struggling to establish the complete contact details, informed an officer in the Health, Medical and Family Welfare department on anonymity.

In fact, all the six patients, who died in the hospitals have survived a maximum of three days.

The officer informed that, even though we have been struggling to collect the information from the patients, they could not reveal all the areas where they visited in their surroundings. In addition to that, tracing the touchpoints of the patients including public places and others also matters a lot. Since we have to disinfect the places and things that the patients touched. When the patient was unable to memorise, speak and reveal all the things due to ill health condition, it becomes a tough task to the field staff in prevention, he explained.

Meanwhile, Arja Srikanth, State Nodal Officer for COVID19 cases informed that the contact people's list will be prepared within 12 hours after they identify the positive patient. Simultaneously, the medical team will visit the houses of contact persons and guide them with precautions.

He also informed that they have identified 133 Red Zones in the State. All the places, from where the positive cases reported are declared as Red Zones. Within that also, 3 Kms radius from the patient's house is declared as containment cluster and no will be allowed into that area.

Except for health, medical and emergency services, no person allowed for any other works, he maintained.

Thermal screening and other precautions have been taking at every entry and exit point of the hotspots, he explained.