The tribal areas in Visakhapatnam district are prone to a number of diseases such as malaria, dengue, sickle cell anaemia and viral fevers. It has been a challenge for the State Government to tackle the outbreaks, largely because of the terrain and lack of road connectivity.
As per a survey by the district administration, about 4,000 tribal villages and hamlets do not have road connectivity and more importantly, a large tract of land is still under the control of the banned CPI (Maoist).
Keeping these factors in mind, the State government will launching the Electronic sub-centres and they will be inaugurated by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday at the AP Health Fest. “As a pilot run we will have about 40 such centres,” Poonam Malakondaiah, Principal Secretary (Health) told The Hindu .
Giving details of the concept, CEO of AP Med Tech and consultant to the State government Dr. Jitendar Sharma said, “It is an Internet-based solution to health issues. Through Internet one can only view the medicines that can be taken based on symptomatic queries, but under this concept, one can be diagnosed and treated with the right medicines.”
Vending machines
The E-sub-centres will have a diagnostic facility and after the reports are generated, they will be fed into the relevant site. The reports will be viewed by expert doctors at the hub and treatment will be designed.
“Each E-sub-centre will also have a medicine vending machine and once the experts feed the treatment, the patients can take the medicine from the vending machines. The idea is to give holistic treatment,” he said.
The only challenge is connectivity and according to district Collector Pravin Kumar, about 176 mobile towers will be erected in the Agency area. “About 90 % of the Agency area will be covered in six months,” he told The Hindu .
