The gradual rise in Assam’s Covid-19 numbers has prompted the health department to focus on the community surveillance programme, in which the state’s 25,000 villages would be screened, to detect any possible community transmission.

Assam has recorded 62 Covid-19 cases so far, with 27 active, including medical practitioners.

Following the rise in the state’s coronavirus patient count, health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma Sarma observed that more testing would be the key to detection of Covid-19 in Assam.

He said, “Our health workers will screen all such people at the community level — be it for malaria, Japanese encephalitis or any other respiratory problem. They will also collect swab samples of those exhibiting preliminary symptoms of Covid-19. We need to gear up to contain the increase in cases in the state.”

On Sunday, Sarma held a video-conferencing with all deputy commissioners to review the community surveillance programme. The state government initiated the programme on Thursday. However, districts like Kamrup (metro), Kokrajhar, Jorhat, Sonitpur and Cachar are yet to start it.

Under the programme, teams comprising a doctor, nurses, paramedics and laboratory technicians will visit every village in the state in the next five weeks and collect samples from those exhibiting any influenza-like symptoms and respiratory issues.

It plans to find unreported cases of SARI (severe acute respiratory infections) and ILI (influenza-like illness) from every village in Assam and to treat the symptomatic minor flu cases at home.

Around 1,800 doctors, 9,000 auxiliary nurse midwife (ANM), 3,000 multi-purpose workers (MPW), 650 community health officers (CHO), 1,100 lab technicians and 30,000 Asha workers have been engaged in the programme. Already, around 6,809 villages have been covered in the last three days.

The health department has marked the programme “highly important”, keeping in view the annual outbreak of Japanese encephalitis (JE) in the state during monsoon. Last year, over 140 people died of JE in the state.

Earlier, Sarma said the Assam government has been facing a Herculean task with the onset of monsoon and the coronavirus pandemic. “Assam not only needs to fight corona but also to prepare for tackling the annual floods and the JE outbreak,” he had said.

Meantime, the sample test of 71 inmates of the Regional Dental College hostel, a declared containment zone, came out negative. Two other doctors, who were also working with the Covid-19 positive female doctor, also tested negative.

Already, two doctors from Gauhati Medical College and Hospital hostel, have tested positive, forcing the state’s biggest Covid-19 hospital to shut its doors to new patients and sending hundreds of health workers to quarantine, hampering coronavirus treatment.