As the southwest monsoon sets its foot in Rayalaseema, heavy rains this month are likely in the region, and this has become has a cause for concern for the health officials in the district that has registered a surge in COVID-19 cases recently.The tally in Anantapur district went up from 231 on Wednesday to 290 on Sunday.
Explaining how monsoon poses new challenges for officials, Government General Hospital Superintendent M. Ramaswamy Naik told The Hindu that the virus is capable of spreading through faecal matter getting mixed with rainwater and drains carrying them.
“In such a case, the municipal authorities and panchayats have a handful of work to keep the drains clean ahead of monsoon to avoid worsening of the situation,” Mr. Naik said. It is a doubly-loaded work for the authorities who have been grappling with a host of other issues.
What’s more worrisome is that the new infections are being reported from across the district, unlike in the beginning when the majority of them were concentrated in Hindupur.
‘Inadequate facilities’
Meanwhile, with a steady rise in the cases, and only three COVID designated hospitals in the district- RDT Bathalapalli (300 beds), KIMS Saveera (100 beds) and Hindupur District Headquarters Hospital (100 beds), the need to expand the health infrastructure has arisen. Moreover, the new Super Speciality Hospital building in the city is yet to be made functional.
The GGH Superintendent said that the district administration was getting prepared to obtain approval for converting at least 100 beds in the Anantapur GGH into COVID-19 ward at the existing Chest, Infectious Diseases and Isolation Wards, where initially positive patients were admitted.
Anantapur district currently does not have have another major teaching hospital like Kurnool district does, hence all serious non-COVID patients were being sent to the GGH and on Sunday evening against its 500-bed capacity, 520 patients were being taken care of, Dr. Ramaswamy added.
The only option now for the COVID patients is to go to Kurnool and Tirupati. “We do not have good hospitals where serious non-COVID patients could be sent,” Dr. Ramaswamy said.
