Deputy Commissioner Narsing Pawar asks Tezpur Health department officials to gear up
Outbreak of encephalitis
A Correspondent
Tezpur: In view of the outbreak of encephalitis in Bihar which has claimed the lives of nearly 100 people, Deputy Commissioner Narsing Pawar on Wednesday directed all Health department officials and other line departments concerned to work concertedly to prevent any possible outbreak of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) and Japanese Encephalitis (JE) during the coming monsoon season. He also directed the officials to be fully prepared to tackle such outbreak, if any, in the district, considering the fact that Sonitpur was one of the worst hit last year.
A meeting of the District Task Force on AES/ JE was held at the conference hall of the Deputy Commissioner’s office on Wednesday under the chairmanship of the Deputy Commissioner. The meeting was organized by the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme, Sonitpur in collaboration with NVBDCP, Sonitpur.
Joint Director, Health Services, Dr. Krishna Kemprai explained the objectives of the meeting while Dr. SP Bordoloi gave a briefing about the activities carried out by the DTF so far.
Speaking at the meeting, Deputy Commissioner Narsing Pawar said since Sonitpur was a vulnerable district, along with stepping up awareness drives through IEC activities there was need to take up advanced precautionary measures immediately to prevent the disease from taking an epidemic form. He directed the Health department officials to identify vulnerable pockets and by analyzing the data of occurrence in previous years, devise a strategy to tackle the disease accordingly. He also stressed the need to put in joint and coordinated efforts of various departments concerned and share data about various steps taken up in this regard with the health department.
The Deputy Commissioner also stressed the need to carry out more awareness activities at the block level so as to improve early reporting of fever cases by ground level health workers and achieve 100 per cent during routine immunization. The role of various line departments such as veterinary, social welfare, agriculture, public health engineering, education and forest departments that are part of the district task force was also discussed in detail during the meeting. Additional Deputy Commissioner KK Sharma, Superintendent, KCH, Dr Rini Duarah, Assistant Commissioner, Arpit Upadhyay, and other senior health department officials were present in the meeting.
Moreover, the monthly review meeting of the District Health Society was also held on Wednesday. Issues related to implementation of various schemes such as Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, Atal Amrit Abhiyaan and Health and Wellness Centres, were discussed during the course of the meeting. The wage compensation scheme for pregnant women of tea gardens was also discussed.