Cases stabilise but Corpn to continue holding fever camps

According to officials from the Greater Chennai Corporation, it has been decided to continue the initiative – which had won it an Independence Day special award – for a few more months. “The spread of the pandemic has been stabilised in most of the zones. We are taking measures to stabilise the spread in extended zones. Even though spread has slowed down, we will continue the fever camps to prevent another outbreak,” an official said.

So far, the Corporation has organised 35,078 fever camps across the city from May 8 to August 19. As many as 19.43 lakh people have attended these camps – or about 20 per cent of the city’s population – of whom 1.12 lakh had ILI symptoms. That is, about 6 per cent of the people who were screened had ILI.

Among those with such illnesses, samples of 1.06 lakh were tested till August 19. Of that, 18,951 returned positive. In other words, 17 per cent of persons withILI had coronavirus infection.

Between July 3 and August 17, as many as 8,858 positive cases were identified through the camps. Of these, 1,396 cases were reported between August 10 and August 17. It is this success that has encouraged the civic body to continue holding the camps to identify COVID cases before those with the infection spread it further.