COVID-19: Group testing and digital technology “Aarogya Setu” - the need of the hour

The importance of group testing, efficient utilization of the diagnostic tests and its applications are highlighted. Though it has advantages, the challenges and constraints and the need for the policy from the concerned authorities to implement group testing in a reliable manner with competent persons were brought out. Thus, with group testing and the use of digital technology “Aarogya Setu” in India, we are confident that we will be able to diagnose cases and implement surveillance activities successfully. Popularization of “Aarogya Setu” by all categories of healthcare workers, teachers, women self help groups and other users of android mobile phones in the interest of the Nation and community at large, towards disease containment were cited. However, the ethical aspects of deployment of such kind of approach as part of a multidimensional public health response, and its usefulness in infectious disease outbreaks have to be monitored

Letter to the Editor

Background Adolescents account for nearly one fifth of the world’s population. Anaemia in this group attributes to high maternal mortality, high incidence of low-birth weight babies, high perinatal mortality and foetal wastage and consequent high fertility rates. An interventional study was carried out to ascertain the impact of three months iron supplementation along with deworming & health education on anaemic adolescent girls in rural area Method The study was conducted at one of the residential school in rural India. All the residential girls of this school (total 209) included in the study. Their haemoglobin status was done and all anaemic girls were treated with 100 mg of Mebendazole two times a day for 3 days. Then all these anaemic girls were randomly allocated in experimental group & control group using random number table. The experimental group was supplemented with 100 mg of iron and 0.5mg of folic acid per day for a period of 3 months. No supplements were given to the control group. For both control & experimental groups, health education regarding anaemia & personal hygiene was given Results Overall prevalence of anaemia in present study was 51.67 %.After 3 months of iron supplementation, mean haemoglobin level in experimental group was increased from 8.93 gm% to 12.51 gm %.( z = 11.5,p < 0.01) .Among control group also there was significant increase in mean haemoglobin status from 8.78 gm% to 9.49 gm %.( z = 2.08, p< 0.05). Conclusion The study proves that anaemia is a very high magnitude of problem in adolescent girls. There is need for anaemia prophylaxis measures for adolescent girls in India including nutrition education in schools. This prophylaxis should be along with periodic deworming. Word count: [2588] Figures and Tables: [4