GUWAHATI: To strengthen the COVID-19 response mechanism, Assam decided to have active surveillance in the name of "Assam Community Surveillance Plan (ACSP)" to look for SARI (Severe Acute Respiratory Infections) and ILI (Influenza like Illness) and fever cases covering all the 28000 villages/wards of Assam from May 7. By making door to door visits, the potential cases of different diseases are listed out to test them (wherever necessary) and to take follow up actions, as per the test report. This opportunity of door to door visit is being used to look for any other diseases, like malaria, dengue, diarrhea etc. State has already completed 1st round of ACSP and based on the encouraging result of 1st round, state has decided to have 2nd round of ACSP from June 10 covering all villages and wards of Assam.
The Assam Community Surveillance Plan is based on the Health Sub Centres in all districts of Assam and the role of ASHA is considered too critical in rolling out the activity, as ASHA makes door to door visit and looks for potential cases. Once, ASHA does the listing of all potential cases by making house to house visit of its area, the medical team, comprising Medical Officer (as leader of the team), ANM, MPW, Lab Tech visits the ASHA village and meet those listed potential cases (as per ASHA list) and screen them. Based on the advice of the Medical Officer, the Lab Tech collects swab, blood (as the case may be) and sample is transported to the designated lab for testing. All the members of the medical team take all the precautions, as per the laid down protocols. For few cases (based on the nature of complaint of the person), Medical Officer only gives advice without prescribing any test. Based on the test report, treatment is given to the patient.
Also watch: Morning Bulletin | 12th June 2020