Srinagar: While the government of Jammu and Kashmir has already extended the Covid curfew till 31 May, the health department has started massive testing at the village level. Vaccination is also being conducted after the pace of vaccination slowed down in entire Jammu and Kashmir.
Recent official figures suggested that 8.4 million people have been tested overall. Financial Commissioner Health Atal Dulloo, while admitting that coronavirus infection has spread at the village level in Jammu and Kashmir, said that massive testing and vaccination was going on, especially for the age group of 18-45 years, to arrest the spread of the infection.
The Jammu chamber of commerce and industry, along with the Kashmir chamber, have appealed to L-G Manoj Sinha to go for gradual unlocking; authorities here have imposed strict curfew, completely paralyzing life and business for the past one month. Despite strict curfew, the figures about the number of deaths and average daily Covid positive cases in Jammu and Kashmir are very disturbing. According to the recently released figures by the government, 2,81,628 cases were reported till Friday, 3,739 lives were lost and 2,35,617 have recuperated.
On the instructions of L-G Manoj Sinha, the health department of Jammu and Kashmir has started training camps for frontline health workers and other such volunteers at the village level to accelerate testing, and made operational five-bed Covid care centres at the panchayat level in Jammu and Kashmir.
Talking to the media, Financial Commissioner Health Atal Dulloo said, “Under ‘training for master trainers’, frontline workers, including anganwadi workers, Asha workers, ANM, sarpanchs, panchs, lumberdars, chowkidars and others, will be provided training regarding conducting Covid tests under the supervision of medical officers.”
He further said, “The Covid care centres at the panchayat and block levels; primary health centres and sub-centres will help to stop the referral of non-severe Covid patients to tertiary care hospitals of Jammu and Srinagar cities. It will eventually reduce pressure on such hospitals.”
The government figures show the pressure on the main hospitals of Jammu and Srinagar. Srinagar and Jammu districts have together contributed for about 1.13 lakh cases and 1,768 deaths of the total till Friday. Jammu district has the highest number of 1,013 fatalities, followed by Srinagar with 755 deaths.
Meanwhile, the Jammu region is reeling under the shadow of the black fungus fear, as out of the eight patients detected with this fungus, two of them have succumbed in hospital.
The Jammu and Kashmir government has already declared black fungus as an epidemic and has invoked the necessary laws to deal with it. Many patients in the Jammu region are complaining about the black fungus.