June 13, 2020 : K K Shailaja, Kerala Health Minister, has made global headlines for the state’s handling of Covid-19. In this E-Xplained episode before a nationwide audience on Zoom, she discusses how Kerala kept the numbers down, and looks at the challenges ahead. Edited excerpts:
On Kerala’s robust Panchayati Raj and healthcare systems
In Kerala we implemented [Panchayati Raj] in a democratic way. Our local self-governments are fully charged with power and the distribution of money is also like that… Our Primary Health Centres are now under the panchayat, local-level panchayat. They are well planned; they are implementing so many novel projects in the Primary Health Centres with the help of the Health Department also. It is now under the Health Department but the local self-government is the authority in that place and that PHC is under their jurisdiction.
On using technology for contact tracing
Yes, I think the most important thing is planning preparedness. When we heard that some novel virus is spreading in China, Wuhan, we anticipated that the virus will come to Kerala definitely because so many Malayalees are in Wuhan, and we started our planning in January itself. I think you know that on January 18, WHO declared that a potential virus is there in Wuhan. At the time WHO didn’t declare it as a pandemic, but when we heard about the novel virus, a new kind of virus from the SARS family, corona family, at once we started to discuss that. My health secretary and my team and I had a meeting and discussed this new kind of virus and we started our planning. On January 24 we had a very good meeting of our Rapid Response Team. We opened our control room at the state level and we informed all 14 districts, district medical officers (DMOs). They also started district-level control rooms. In each control room we have added expert groups. Every Additional DHS and other higher official has one or two duties. One is responsible for contact tracing, another is responsible for making isolation rooms and Covid hospitals, and someone has the duty of logistics collection, and even mental health.
