Deaths become frequent as coronavirus infiltrates rural UP: NGO

Lucknow: Deaths are very frequent in villages now as the deadly coronavirus has now been infiltrated into the rural areas of Uttar Pradesh where the government has no record to ascertain how many people have died of coronavirus so far.
“Death is very quick. The villagers ignore the fever and body ache and treat them as seasonal fever which will go with a passage of time and before they would understand it is covid they’ll die,” Raja Bhaiya, convener of the Vidya Dham samiti, an NGO in Banda said on Monday.
He said the cries of women and children from a house testify to the death of a person and these cries are quite frequent now. “I cannot quantify as to how many people have died in the Attara block in the last one week but I can tell you there is a beeline in Banda crematorium to cremate the bodies. This was never seen in Banda before,” Raja Bhaiya said.
“In the absence of space in cremation ground people are cremating people in the fields,” he said.
Not only Banda, the reports of death of people are pouring in from the outskirts of Lucknow. Doctors in PHC Chinhat vouch that almost 50 people have died of fever in Juggaur in the last fortnight. In Ruddauli half a dozen villagers died in Pakkaudi village, prompting administration to carry out surveillance. In Bhaupur village in Ayodhya 32 people were found corona positive. The tests were carried out after 4 people died there.
During Corona 1.0, rural UP remained more or less unaffected because of strict lockdown. But in this edition of corona infection the Panchayat elections and free movement of people, marriages and harvest season led to an increase in corona infection.
A government official said that the government is alive to this situation and therefore it is going to launch an extensive testing drive for Covid infection in all the 97,409 revenue villages of Uttar Pradesh from May 5. The campaign will be run by ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) and Aanganwadi workers
“This is done to check the transmission in the rural area by identifying positive cases. The number of RRTs (Rapid Response Teams) would be deployed to check covid spread,” he said and added that the focus is to contain the spread of the infections in rural areas.
As per his instructions, as many as ten lakh antigen tests will be conducted in rural areas while ten lakh medical kits will also be distributed during the drive. “There are around 60,569 surveillance committees constituted at the village level. Lekhpal will be included in the committee. The Gram Panchayat Secretary is the Members Secretary and representatives of Asha, Anganwadikatri, Kotedar, Rojgar Sevak, Chowkidar and others are the members of these committees,” he further added.
UNI

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