Police secure 86 entry points along porous borders with T.N.

Teams to prevent entry of people into Puducherry without valid reason

In this file picture police personnel stop a motorist during the lockdown near the inter-state border at Gorimedu in Puducherry.

The administration has secured an estimated 86 entry points along the porous border with Tamil Nadu as part of measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Balaji Srivastava, Director General of Police said in a review meeting convened by Lt. Governor Kiran Bedi that police teams had been deployed at these points to prevent people entering Puducherry without a valid reason.

Earlier, only the major entry points from the Villupuram and Cuddalore routes were being policed.

The Health department had been raising concerns over the continuing crossover of people from the neighbouring State since Puducherry announced partial relaxations to the lockdown.

The administration, which has so far been able to keep COVID-19 cases under check and offset community spread, has been particularly concerned given that several places in Puducherry and Karaikal adjoined hotspots in Villupuram and Cuddalore districts while a similar scenario also existed in its enclaves in Mahe, Kerala and Yanam, Andhra Pradesh.

According to health department officials, a significant number of patients were pouring in for treatment of regular ailments. Health teams have been posted at several places along the border to provide medical care to those with regular illnesses and only patients in an emergency were being allowed in to seek treatment at a hospital.

Puducherry has meanwhile increased RT-PCR tests, with the IGMCRI, along with Jipmer, now conducting laboratory diagnosis for COVID-19. IGMCRI has a capacity for analysing 50 samples a day.

Another set of 35 randomised surveillance tests conducted in the community for COVID-19 by the health department has returned negative. The 102 surveillance tests earlier conducted from asymptomatic subjects drawn randomly from across the city had also returned negative, raising confidence that community spread was not happening in Puducherry at the moment.

However, repeat tests on COVID-19 patients at the IGMCRI returned positive, S. Mohan Kumar, Director of Health said. The next assessment would be held after a week.