GUWAHATI: Assam government has intensified community level testing for COVID-19 in urban areas in order to break the transmission chain of the virus and prevent its spread to rural areas.
The state government has already instructed authorities in all districts of the state to facilitate COVID testing of all the tea garden workers in their respective districts to prevent spread of the disease to labour lines in over 800 tea estates in the state.
The health authorities have set up 91 COVID testing centres in Kamrup Metropolitan district alone in various wards of Guwahati city where there has been incidence of maximum number of cases in the state, to facilitate mass testing with a target to achieve one lakh mark on August 5 next. Already about 50,000 tests have been conducted in Guwahati city alone while over eight lakhs tests have been conducted across the state.
The authorities have launched COVID-19 testing drive covering apartments in Guwahati city to detected the infected at the earliest and isolate them from the community. Tests are being conducted in Government offices as well as various offices of state corporations in the state.
Meanwhile, state Health and Family Welfare Minister of Assam, Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma has directed the health officials of Sonitpur District to carry out tests for COVID-19 in all houses and business establishments, especially in Tezpur and Dhekiajuli towns.
The Minister asked the officials to carry out at least 2000 tests per day in these two towns so as to get a clearer picture of the status of local transmission of COVID-19 in Tezpur and Dhekiajuli towns where a spike in cases has been observed of late.
Meanwhile, close watch is being kept on towns of Jorhat, Nagaon, Dibrugarh, Silchar and Tinsukia where there has been rapid rise in COVID-19 positive cases. Community-level testing centres have been set up in those district headquarter towns for early detection.