Coronavirus pandemic | Health ministry issues guidelines for preparedness and response to COVID-19 in urban settlements

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has issued guidelines for preparedness and response to COVID-19 in urban settlements.

In the context of COVID-19 (or any other respiratory infectious disease for that matter) implementing strategic interventions such as surveillance, physical distancing, isolation, quarantine and communicating the risk to the dwellers could be challenging.

According to 2011 Census, there are 2,613 towns/cities that have such settlements with 6.54 crore population residing in 1.39 crore households, representing 17.4 of all urban population. This would have increased in number further since last few years, said the document released by the ministry.

These localities are often overcrowded, with many people crammed into very small living spaces. A substantial percentage of this population is migrant workers employed in industrial and other informal sectors.

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So, the government has issued guidelines for preparing these urban settlements for prevention and control of COVID-19:

> Institutional mechanism

These settlements are governed under the jurisdiction of Urban Local Bodies (Municipal Corporations or Municipalities). Planning on preparedness and response to COVID-19 by such local bodies should cover the management of COVID-19 as well as focusing on challenges unique to such populations.

Under this, an Incident Commander of appropriate seniority would be identified depending upon the geographic extent of the settlements and its population size. A coordination mechanism shall be evolved under the leadership of Incident Commander and would comprise of representatives from Health, W&CD, ICDS, Housing & Urban Affairs, Public Health Engineering Wing, Swachh Bharat Mission, elected representatives, prominent NGOs already serving the area, community leaders, etc.

> COVID-19 containment plan

The COVID containment plan for these urban settlements will address the key challenges specific to these areas. Implementation of this plan will ensure that the core capacities are available to respond to COVID-19.

The ministry further issued guidelines for response to the COVID-19 outbreak in urban settlements. This included trigger for action and implementation of cluster containment plan.

Here's the full document that the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has released:

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