Pramesh S Jain & Yogesh K Porwar
BBMP Chief Commissioner,Gaurav Gupta,along with,Special Commissioner,D Randeep,Chief Health Officer,(Public Health) Dr.Vijendra,Chief Health Officer,(Clinical) Dr.Nirmala Buggi, members of the Paediatric expert committee and technical expert committees and other officials were present.
He instructed the authorities to identify all nodal authorities in all schools in Bengaluru to check for Covid19 in children with symptoms persisting for more than two days to control the Covid19 virus in the city.
He was speaking at a meeting with Paediatric expert committee members and technical expert committee about appropriate steps to be taken towards containing Covid19 in BBMP limits.
The meeting discussed precautions to be taken to prevent the Covid virus in children,how to conduct Covid tests and separate bed arrangements for children.
All schools in the city must identify nodal officers and they should work in coordination with the health officer working in the primary health centre that falls in the same area as the school.
Students with symptoms persisting for more than two days must be asked not to attend the school. He added that if the information of children with symptoms is provided to PHC,a team of health officials should visit the houses of the said children and conduct tests.
RT-PCR test is being conducted for children with symptoms persisting for more than two days in hospitals and most children have been tested negative.
In this regard,guidelines from BBMP would be issued to all hospitals about conducting tests for children with symptoms for more than 2 days and children who are being hospitalised due to other diseases, he said.
Vaccines should be given to those who come in contact with school-going children.This will keep everyone safe,the chief commissioner said.
Covid infection is not found a lot in children in the city,he remarked and added that 7.21% infection percentage is found in children aged 0 to 12 years and 8.21% in 13 to 18-year-old children.He said children often have symptoms such as fever,common cold and cough during the period of infection and are cured within a week.
“Meeting with technical expert committee”
The meeting with the committee of technical experts discussed Sero Survey and Genome Sequencing.
The Chief Commissioner said that the committee experts have requested detailed information regarding the sero survey and the report will be released after collecting more info.
The Genome Sequencing has shown more no of delta strains. The experts’ committee has advised examining if any other variant is found in the city.
The committee has also suggested continuing genome sequencing and accordingly, BBMP will collect samples and test to see if any other variant is found in the city.
Genome sequencing will be done by obtaining more samples from double dose vaccinated people who have been infected with Covid19.
The genome sequencing will be conducted in all the required manner and the report will be released soon he added.
