New Delhi: Nearly 10,000 villages in Chhattisgarh are completely free from COVID-19 infection as the virus has either not been able to reach these villages or those infected have already recovered, the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) informed on Thursday.
Due to the micro-level arrangements made by the state government, today, out of the total 20,092 villages in Chhattisgarh, about 9,462 villages are free from COVID-19 infection, read the release by the CMO.
“At present, there is not a single COVID-19 case in these villages, this was possible due to the prompt measures initiated by the Chhattisgarh government to prevent infection from reaching these villages,” it said.
With the outbreak of the second wave of Corona in the urban areas of the state, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel had directed that all necessary steps should be taken to prevent infection from reaching rural areas.
“Following this directive, quarantine centers set up in villages during the first wave were again made operational with stronger arrangements than before. Check-up, stay and treatment arrangements were made in these centers for persons and families returning to villages from other states or urban areas. Mitaanins, health staff, as well as Anganwadi workers and teachers, were given the responsibility to conduct a door-to-door survey to locate the infected person,” the CMO said.
“Anganwadi workers and field officer-employees also contributed to identifying and treating the patients with cold and fever. They also played an important role in creating awareness regarding the prevention and treatment of COVID-19,” it said.
The Chief Minister’s Office said that supply and distribution of essential medicines kits were ensured to every village in time and new labs were continuously established to increase testing facilities in the state.
“With this, the number of daily testing of samples has increased from 22,000 to more than 70,000 per day. Along with the increase in the number of beds already available in hospitals, new COVID centers were set up and treatment facilities were extended to rural areas. The number of ambulances and other vehicles has been increased so that serious patients of rural areas can be shifted to hospitals as quickly as possible,” the release said.
According to the Union Health Ministry, Chhattisgarh has 53,480 active COVID-19 cases.
The total number of recoveries has reached 8,93,285 and fatalities have mounted to 12,779.