Bengaluru :  Revenue Minister Mr R Ashoka who is also the vice-chairman of Karnataka State Disaster Management Authority has said that special teams will be formed to conduct on the spot and door-to-door testing for symptomatic patients in rural and semi-urban areas.

A notification in this regard was issued by the Principal Secretary for Revenue Department Mr Manjunath Prasad. Mr Ashoka said, “Despite the State Government taking tough measures to break the transmission chain, there is a rise in Covid cases in rural and semi-urban areas. Many people in rural areas are refusing to get tested. There are not many testing centres in rural areas. Hence, special teams including doctors, Auxiliary Nursing Midwifery (ANM)/Anganawadi workers will visit every house in the rural areas. These teams will identify symptomatic patients and conduct Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) on the spot. For this purpose, we will be identifying the patients wherever they are.” In case of patient testing positive, doctors will test the patient and take a call whether the patient needs home isolation, hospital or Covid care centre admission. All the primary contacts of the Covid positive patient will also be tested on the spot. Medical kits will also be provided to the home isolated patients.

Mr R Ashoka said that a new programme-“Doctors are reaching to villages” is launched where mobile clinics will be visiting villages. For this purpose, the services of final year medical internship students, BSc (nursing), BDS, MDS and Ayush graduates will also be utilised.