In Rajasthan’s Bhilwara, ‘ruthless containment’ model breaks virus transmission chain

Since April 3 an aggressive 11-day-long “all-down curfew” started with even essential services being curtailed

A view of deserted roads in Bhilwara, Rajasthan, which is under curfew since March. 20, 2020.

The “ruthless containment” model adopted in Bhilwara, which emerged last month as the worst-affected district in Rajasthan , has succeeded in breaking the chain of novel Coronavirus transmission . Among the 27 COVID-19 positive cases found earlier in the textile city, 25 patients have been cured of the infection and 15 discharged from hospital.

Bhilwara District Collector Rajendra Bhatt said on Friday that the remaining 10 persons, who were under observation, would be discharged in a couple of days. The two elderly people who died after testing COVID-19 positive reportedly had co-morbidity and other medical complications, while one of them was also in a state of coma when he was tested.

Since April 3, when an aggressive

11-day-long “all-down curfew” started with even essential services being curtailed, only two new cases have been reported in the city of 4 lakh people. Teams of health workers have screened a population of 24 lakh in the entire district and conducted contact tracing of COVID-19 patients on a war-footing.

The only patient infected with Coronavirus and being treated in the district is a 47-year-old teacher, who was detected positive in the screening by a medical team on Thursday. He has claimed that he had no travel or contact history.

Dr. Daulat Meena, a physician at the Mahatma Gandhi Government Hospital who treated some of the patients, told The Hindu  that the treatment regimen was decided after studying contact and medical history of each of them. “The right combination of drugs and multiple testing at regular gaps ensured timely recovery of patients. Since most of them were staff members of a private hospital, they knew that the illness could be fatal if not managed properly.”

Meticulous strategies 

The containment model involved some meticulous strategies adopted in several phases, including isolation of the district with its borders being sealed, screening in the city and in rural areas, and sending the people showing symptoms to home quarantine and the confirmed patients to isolation wards. This was followed by a rigorous monitoring in the district's villages.

Significantly, the total lockdown in Bhilwara started on March 20, shortly after the health authorities detected the first positive case in a private hospital and four days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared the three-week nationwide lockdown . The aggressive screening process was taken up during the lockdown.

The district administration also acquired hotels, resorts, hostels and dharamshalas in the town to arrange 1,500 quarantine beds and 14,400 normal beds to meet an emergency situation. During the ongoing “all-down curfew”, there is no relaxation of any type and the essential items are being delivered to the city residents at their doorstep.

After Union Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba praised the Bhilwara model at a videoconferencing with the Chief Secretaries of the States recently, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has given instructions for its implementation in other COVID-19 hotspots in the States, including the Walled City of Jaipur , where a large number of cases are being detected.