Early detection of fever cases through door-to-door surveillance, availability of test results within 12 hours and immediate isolation of COVID-19 patients helps in reducing the cases in the civic body limits, said Corporation Commissioner M. Elangovan.
During the first wave last year, two-third of cases were reported in civic body limits while one-third of the cases were reported in the civic body limits in the second wave.
To control the spread of virus, 1,400 staff were deployed and door-to-door surveillance was carried out in all the 60 wards in the past three weeks that helped in early detection of cases. Since it takes over 36 hours for declaration of swab results at the laboratory at the Government Erode Medical College and Hospital at Perundurai, the corporation sought the help of district administration and arrangements were made to test the samples at a private lab in Coimbatore.
“Test results were available within 12 hours and treatment was provided immediately to prevent spread of virus”, Mr. Elangovan told The Hindu .
He said that the corporation sends 3,100 samples everyday to the lab of which 270 test positive. “The number of positive cases had come down from over 450 a day to less than 300 a day in the past two weeks”, he said and added that intensive door-to-door surveillance would continue in the coming days until nil cases were reported.
