The Greater Chennai Corporation has sent 2,300 outreach workers to contain COVID-19 in the slums of the city, said Commissioner, G. Prakash.
Speaking to media persons on Friday, he said the city has not reported any major spurt of COVID-19 positive cases in the past 45 days owing to a community intervention programme. Each outreach worker will cover 300 houses every day. The number of outreach workers will double shortly.
“Slums in the city have 26 lakh residents who do not have resources to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The outreach workers are creating awareness. A total of 92 NGOs have been roped in. The spread of COVID-19 will be controlled,” said Mr. Prakash.
The Greater Chennai Corporation has intensified testing for COVID-19 in all the 15 zones of the city. “The city’s testing facilities have increased the number of tests from 5,000 to 10,000 every day. This includes private facilities. The Greater Chennai Corporation has increased the testing from 1,500 to 5,000 every day,” said Mr. Prakash. The Corporation has identified around 3,500 persons with symptoms of COVID-19 on Friday, when compared with 600 a few weeks ago, he said.
The civic body has also planned to develop Anna University as a COVID-19 care centre. “Madras Medical College will take over the buildings on the premises of Anna University. The COVID-19 care centre in Anna University will have 1,500 beds. The original proposal was to develop 2,000 beds for COVID-19 positive patients. But 500 beds are expected to be earmarked for doctors and nurses. It will begin operations in five days,” said Mr. Prakash.
The COVID-19 care centre in IIT Madras will have 1,200 beds. Currently, 400 beds have been readied in IIT Madras.
Currently, the city has 17,500 beds in COVID-19 care centres and 4,350 patients have been admitted.
