Containment zones in Howrah climbs down

Kolkata: Containment zones in Howrah has gone down by five on Monday with a series of steps taken up by the district authorities to stem the hike in COVID-19 cases.

Earlier there was 85 containment zones including 17 in the areas under jurisdiction of Howrah Municipal Corporation (HMC). The containment zone came down to 80 and the same came down to 16 in HMC areas.

This comes when 133 people got infected to the disease in the past 24 hours. Interestingly, the district administration has been providing telemedicine facilities since May 14. So far 2,678 people have received the benefits of telemedicine. The people who received the benefits include 415 who were released after getting cured from COVID-19, 44 of them are in institutional quarantine, and 557 COVID-19 patients in home isolation. It also include 589 families and 216 primary contacts.

The telemedicine facilities is available from 11 am to 3 pm from Monday to Saturday. A mammoth infrastructure was set up to ensure the uninterrupted service. Top health experts provide assistance to callers. The district health authorities also constantly follow up all the positive home isolation patient. A unique initiative of sending prescription through allopathic whatsapp has also been introduced.

A senior health official of the district said: "Psychiatric counselling is also given if required. We also perform video call as per requirement. At present, we are calling about 100 patients or families per day." Dr Bhabani Das, Chief Medical Officer (Health) of Howrah, said: "Introduction of telemedicine is tremendously helping us in providing health assistance to maximum number of

people."

At the same time the HMC is all to set up a dedicated phone number in which people can inform about violations taking place at containment zones.