The Guntur Municipal Corporation is planning to ramp up its cluster containment strategy across the city, which is one of the worst-affected in the State with over 125 COVID-19 cases.
Officials said that the spread of infection has been contained to the areas that have reported cases in the beginning, adding that the cluster containment strategy seems to have worked well in halting the community spread of the virus.
GMC Commissioner C. Anuradha said aggressive cluster containment strategies backed by intensive sanitation and disinfection of all public places helped slow the spread of the pandemic.
“The GMC has identified 15 clusters, and we have been aggressively implementing the cluster containment strategy. But for the spread of infection to the primary and secondary contacts of the Delhi returnees, we have managed to control the situation,” Ms. Anuradha told The Hindu on Saturday.
Ever since the first COVID-19 case was recorded in Guntur on March 25, the GMC swung into action to take steps to contain the spread of the virus.
Areas up to a radius of 500 m from the houses of COVID-19 patients have been designated as core zones and a complete lockdown has been imposed by barricading all entry and exit points.
An area of up to one km from the houses of COVID-19 patients have been identified as red zones, and barricades have been placed on approach roads leading to the areas.
Presently, there are 15 clusters in the city: Mangaladas Nagar, Auto Nagar, RTC Colony, Anandapeta, Kummari Bazar, LB Nagar, Nallacheruvu, Sangadigunta, Butchaiathota, Srinivasraothota, Koretipadu, Chaitanyapuri Colony, Brodipet, Gunturuvari Thota and Gorantla.
The clusters have been broadly classified into six containment zones, each of them manned by a control room headed by a senior officer. Each control room has an MRO, a medical officer, a Circle Inspector, a CRO and administrative secretaries besides ANMs.
“The GMC has also constituted 3,780 primary surveillance teams in slums and non-slum areas and has appointed 58 medical officers and 188 paramedical staff for surveillance in the containment areas,” the Commissioner said.
Besides, the GMC has ensured that all standard sanitation protocols, spraying of sodium hypochlorite solution at public places like bus shelters, community toilets, and markets has been completed. The disinfection has covered all households. The GMC had further engaged two jumbo sprinkler grade II 600 litres and a BHEL 2000 litres vehicle for sprinkling.
Relief measures include setting up 20 vegetable markets, 11 relief camps and 28 mobile carts for distribution of essential commodities.
