JAMMU: The Chief Secretary, B V R Subrahmanyam while taking stock of efforts toward mitigating COVID-19 threat, directed Deputy Commissioners to adopt liberal release policy at administrative quarantine centres.
He said that if the quarantined persons test negative, as per existing Standard Operating Procedure, they can be sent to ‘home quarantine’ immediately.
The Chief Secretary urged Deputy Commissioners to notify cemetery/ cremation grounds exclusively for COVID victims so as to prevent any untoward incidence regarding their last rituals.
The Chief Secretary directed Divisional Commissioners, Jammu and Kashmir to undertake quality audits of administrative quarantine centres in respective provinces and suggest measures for improvement.
Regarding exit policy for de-notification of red/ containment zones, Chief Secretary instructed for allowing partial de-notification, if no new case is reported for 21 continuous days under existing protocol. “This will be followed by intensive/ sentinel testing and if still no case is reported, then the zone will be de-notified after 30 days”, he added.
To capture samples of increased number of travellers in coming days, Chief Secretary asked the concerned District Commissioners to enhance sampling capacities at all entry points including two airports and four railway stations. MD, NHM was directed to simultaneously enhance testing capacity.
Administrative Secretaries of departments of Health & Medical Education, Information, Disaster Management, Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction, and Mission Director, National Health Mission (NHM) participated in the meeting.
Divisional Commissioners of Jammu, Kashmir and all Deputy Commissioners attended the meeting through video conference.
He also issued guidelines for de-notification of Red/Containment Zones.
The guidelines provide that all districts need to follow a uniform approach for de-notification of Containment Zones/Red Zones in order to ensure effective control of the COVID-19 infection both in these zones and in the neighbourhood.
The guidelines have set criteria to be fulfilled for de-notification of containment zones/ red zones.
It requires, Intensive Testing: Prior to de-notification, sampling and testing using RTPCR testing should be undertaken and completed for the particular groups between the 14th to 21st day from the date of notification of the Zone, the guidelines stated.
The testing needs to be done of “All vulnerable persons including those with co morbidities, pregnant women, those above 50 years of age, those with ILI/ SARI symptoms. Swasthya Nidhi will be used for identification of vulnerable persons.
There would be ‘Active Surveillance’ with at least three door to door visits for ILI (Influenza like Illness) and SARI (Severe Acute Respiratory Illness) cases in the notified Red zone, ideally once every week. Swasthya Nidhi will be used for surveillance, while “All service providers residing in and health care workers attending to people in the Containment Zone/Red Zone and at least 50% of the remaining residents of the Red Zone are to be tested.
The guidelines also underline the Role of Epidemiological investigation.
“Epidemiological investigation by RRT teams should confirm the source of infection or identify the index cases in the notified Red Zone area and this should rule out any other hidden transmission in the said zone as well as probability of any missing case/ Contacts.
There should be no confirmed COVID positive case in the Containment Zone/ Red Zone, other than that of a traveler, who is in quarantine from his date of arrival in the zone, for 21 days after the notification of the Containment Zone/ Red Zone.
The guidelines also provide for Partial De-notification. On fulfilment of the above two criteria, the Containment Zone/Red Zone can be partially de-notified on the 22nd day.
There shall be follow up Random Sampling; Random samples of 10% of the residents shall again be done from the 25th to 30th day.
Full De-notification would be done ‘If there are no more confirmed COVID positive cases. This would mean that the Zone has had no positive case for 30 days.
The guidelines also provided for ‘Re-notification of Containment Zones/ Red Zones’. If a positive case is again reported from the Containment Zone/ Red Zone during the random sampling phase or earlier, It shall again be re-notified once again as a Containment Zone/ Red Zone and the SOP for these zones will be implemented again in toto.
The partial de-notification and full de-notification can be done only after there is a clear gap of 21 days and 30 days respectively from the last positive case detected in the Zone.

KR Desk