Amid fears of possible third wave, UP govt forms aggressive strategy to contain COVID-19 spread

The Uttar Pradesh government has initiated a major campaign to prevent the spread of coronavirus infection as well as other infectious diseases. Under this campaign, now a state-wide special communicable disease control campaign will run till July 31. During this, the government will work on spreading awareness about infectious diseases.

In the country's largest state UP in terms of population, a 'Dastak' campaign will be conducted from July 12 to 25 to control encephalitis. In this campaign, monitoring committees will go door to door. At the same time, Asha and Anganwadi workers will also provide their support along with front line workers.

Medicine kits specially made for young children will now be given free of cost if they are suffering from other diseases like fever apart from Covid-19 infection. At the same time, under the aggressive strategy, the door-to-door free medicine campaign will be further accelerated. 

Meanwhile, over 50 lakh children will be given free medicine kits. It may be noted that children with symptoms below the age of 18 years are being given different kits in four categories (0-1, 1-5, 5-12 and 12-18 years).

The UP government is committed to save the people of the state from being hit by the pandemic in every way. Under this mission, more than 70,000 monitoring committees screened about 17.15 crore houses in the state. At the same time, 71 lakh medical kits are also being given to adults free of cost.

In this one-month-long campaign, urban development, Panchayati Raj and village development, animal husbandry, education, agriculture, empowerment of persons with disabilities, irrigation, information and public relations departments, medical and health and medical education departments will work by making a special action plan. Similarly, now a special communicable disease control campaign will be conducted with the cooperation of all the departments. At the same time, the MDA program of filariasis and identification of tuberculosis patients will be done in this Dastak campaign.

At present, more than 18,000 sub-health centres are operating in Uttar Pradesh, whose number will now be increased to 30,000. For this, 5,000 new sub-health centres will be deployed at the development block level in two months. In the sub-health center, people will get the benefit of health services and quick medical help. The Secondary Education Department will also run a communicable disease campaign till July 31. All activities will be conducted through 2,90,625 WhatsApp groups made up of teachers and students.

According to the information, the government of UP is on high alert regarding the new Delta Plus variant of coronavirus. Although not a single case has been found in UP yet, the officials are keeping a close watch on this. For this, surveillance and testing of people coming from delta plus infection states has been intensified and genome sequencing work is going on in the districts adjacent to other states. Genome sequencing of samples is being done at KGMU Lucknow and Varanasi BHU. Soon genome sequencing work will be done in other districts including Gautam Budh Nagar.

The virus has been controlled in Uttar Pradesh by the UP model. Therefore, all-around preparations are being made even before the third wave. The effect of partial corona curfew and vaccination was seen with trace, test, treat, due to which the infection in Uttar Pradesh is now at its lowest level.