TN to conduct health camps after incessant rainfall

Chennai, Nov 19 (IANS) The Tamil Nadu health department has directed the district collectors to conduct medical camps to prevent the outbreak of any infectious diseases after the floods and incessant rainfall.

The state health secretary Dr. J. Radhakrishnan has called upon the district collectors to conduct medical camps in all the flood-affected areas and to prevent any outbreak of diseases.

In areas where inundation has taken place and water has receded, the state health department has directed collectors to spray bleaching powder, clear debris and garbage, stop the overflowing of sewage with water, fogging, chlorinating water, and reduce mosquito breeding.

The state health department has also directed the district collectors to conduct mobile medical camps to treat diseases like fever, diarrhea, jaundice, and dengue.

State health minister Ma Subramanian while speaking to IANS said, "The state health department has directed all district collectors to conduct health camps to prevent any outbreak of diseases. The state health department would be providing all the support to the district administrations to prevent any diseases from spreading."

Many parts of Tamil Nadu were reeling under the impact of heavy rainfall for the past couple of weeks, which led to waterlogging, inundation leading to breaking of pipes and mixing of sewages into water streams. This has created several issues, increasing the possibility of spread of diseases.

The health department has been conducting massive Covid vaccination camps across the state. Around 50,000 camps centres were conducted every week. The state government has to vaccinate around 1.04 crore people with the first dose of the Covid jab and the experience in conducting vaccine camps has made things easier for the district administrations to conduct health camps to counter the outbreak of communicable diseases after the heavy rainfall.

Chief Minister, M.K. Stalin had conducted a high-level meeting with the Chief Secretary and other senior officers on Thursday to take measures to prevent the outbreak of any rain-related diseases, and the directive of the state health secretary to the district collectors is seen as the outcome of this meeting conducted by the Chief Minister.