Andhra govt starts innovative door-to-door campaign to trace foreign returnees

The Andhra Pradesh government on Monday said it has traced over 10,000 foreign returnees through an innovative door-to-door campaign, out of which 140 of them have shown symptoms of coronavirus, while the rest remain asymptomatic.

To contain the spread of COVID-19, the state government deployed over 2.5 lakh volunteers with the responsibility of screening 50 households each.

According to the Union Health Ministry, there are seven confirmed cases of coronavirus in Andhra Pradesh.

"The campaign has helped the government identify and track 10,000 foreign returnees over and above those informed about by the Government of India," the government said in a statement.

Due to this campaign, the state government is able to identify those people whose details are not mentioned in the central government records and those who intentionally hide their travel history, it said.

Out of the 10,000 returnees identified, the state government said 140 people have shown symptoms, while the remaining 9,860 have been asymptomatic.

A total of 1,38,58,747 households have been screened by the volunteer network by now out of the registered 1,43,91,654 households present in the state, it said.

The cut-off date to track foreign returnees has been set on February 10, 2020.

Apart from tracking the foreign returnees, the government said volunteers are spreading awareness about the do's and don'ts' to each member of the household.

The government said it wants to reach every household in the state through this campaign and is expanding the wings of this campaign to those without a travel history.

Under the campaign, each volunteer is responsible for 50 households. If there are any symptomatic persons or foreign returnees in these 50 households, the volunteers make an entry in a mobile application given to them.

These entries are directly monitored by the district health authorities and primary health care centres. Depending on the need of the specific case, health teams are rushed to the spot and appropriate action is taken.