Karnataka govt to establish separate fever clinics in district, taluk-level hospitals

Karnataka government on Monday, June 22 announced that fever clinics would be established at district levels and taluk levels where fever cases will be treated separately. The circular issued by the state Health Department also specified that private institutions in the corporation areas should also be designated as fever clinics.

READ: Coronavirus Live Updates: India Reports 440,215 COVID-19 Cases, 248,190 Recovered

Separate clinic in every district

The circular read, "Fever clinics to be established at all district hospitals/district-level hospitals and taluk-level hospitals, wherein all fever cases should be screened 24x7 in a separate area and for Influenza-Like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) cases to be subjected for swab testing,"

"100 per cent of Community Health Centres (CHC), 50 per cent of Primary Health Centres and Urban Primary Health Centres (UPHC) to be converted as exclusive fever clinics to screen ILI/SARI during working hours. The remaining PHC/UPHC to cater to non-COVID-19 cases. All health institutions need to have a separate entry for COVID and non-COVID services," the circular further read.

READ: Karnataka To Seal Clusters Completely, Only Severe COVID Cases To Be Hospitalised

Price cap

The state government has announced a cap on treatment rates in private hospitals; for those referred by public health facilities, it will range between Rs 5,200 to Rs 10,000 whereas costs for patients who approach private hospitals directly will be in the range of Rs 10,000 to Rs 25,000. 

As per the order, 50 percent of the beds in private hospitals having facilities to treat COVID-19 cases shall be reserved for the treatment of patients referred by the public health authorities and this will include High Dependency Units and Intensive Care Units, which could be with or without ventilators.

READ: Fauci Hopeful For A Vaccine By Late 2020, Early 2021

Karnataka has reported 322 new cases of coronavirus and eight fatalities, increasing the state's total count to 9,721 and death toll to 150. The government expects the total count to increase to 25,000 by August 15 at the current growth rate of 4%. 

Munish Moudgil, chief of Karnataka COVID-19 war room, has recommended three action points for the administration which include tracing all contacts of every patient within 24 hours and effectively quarantining them. His second suggestion is that every inter-state passenger should be effectively quarantined for 14 days and third entails increased qualitative tests which means selecting and testing vulnerable and infectious groups.

READ: 20,000 Beds For COVID-19 Patients In Delhi By Next Week: Amit Shah