Health dept. focused on screening migrants

‘Their arrival can pose difficulties if they are left unchecked’

The Health department has focused its attention on screening people, particularly migrant workers, returning to the State to ascertain if they have contracted COVID-19.

The screening follows the influx of migrant workers consequent on the relaxations announced by the Central government recently after which a number of workers started returning to the State. Teams of the department are conducting thorough checks on the people returning by road at check points and are sending the returnees to 14-day home quarantine immediately upon arrival.

CM’s directives

The development comes in light of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s directions to ensure that there is no scope for the spread of the virus on account of these workers. The direction assumes significance after several migrant workers who had returned tested positive for coronavirus.

Health Minister Eatala Rajender said the incidence of virus which started with foreign returnees escalated after the congregation at Nizamuddin in New Delhi and the government was now focussed on migrant workers coming back. “The arrival of these workers can pose difficulties if they are left unchecked,” he said, adding the government was therefore cautious about those workers.

While the teams deputed by the department were screening those arriving in the State, ASHA workers were supervising the movement of people in and out of the villages. According to reports, 798 people arrived in the State by air and another 239 by trains. Nearly 41,805 people have come to the State by road so far.

He said the government is taking adequate precautions to check people arriving in the State and it was for the people to follow the health protocols issued. People should, therefore, maintain physical distance and other measures to ensure that the scope for spread of the virus is minimised.