Chandra A. Steps taken to fight the COVID-19 pandemic at the grassroots level of rural India: Experience of a community physician. World J Clin Infect Dis 2022; 12(3): 76-84 [DOI: 10.5495/wjcid.v12.i3.76]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Ankit Chandra, MD, Doctor, Centre for Community Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi 110029, Delhi, India. suniyal3151@gmail.com
Research Domain of This Article
Health Care Sciences & Services
Article-Type of This Article
Field of Vision
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Infect Dis. Dec 29, 2022; 12(3): 76-84 Published online Dec 29, 2022. doi: 10.5495/wjcid.v12.i3.76
Steps taken to fight the COVID-19 pandemic at the grassroots level of rural India: Experience of a community physician
Ankit Chandra
Ankit Chandra, Centre for Community Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi 110029, Delhi, India
Author contributions: Chandra A drafted and finalised this manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The author reports no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ankit Chandra, MD, Doctor, Centre for Community Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi 110029, Delhi, India. suniyal3151@gmail.com
Received: October 13, 2022 Peer-review started: October 13, 2022 First decision: October 28, 2022 Revised: November 11, 2022 Accepted: December 7, 2022 Article in press: December 7, 2022 Published online: December 29, 2022
Abstract
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first identified in Wuhan, China and then rapidly spread all over the world. The World Health Organization declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020 as a result of COVID-19. As it has caused substantial morbidity and mortality, most countries took several measures to control its spread, including India. As of now, India has witnessed three major waves of COVID-19. Several measures like nationwide lockdown, active case finding, contact tracing, home isolation, and vaccination were taken. There was involvement of multiple sectors (including private and government) and community participation. During the pandemic, I was posted at a primary health centre in a rural setting in India. A rural primary care setting has its own limitations. All the steps taken had several challenges at the grassroots level. Therefore, through this article, I highlighted the challenges faced during the implementation of steps taken to battle the pandemic and the outcome.
Core Tip: Numerous steps were taken in response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic including nationwide lockdown, active case finding, contact tracing, screening, home isolation, transfer of patients to dedicated care centres, vaccination, and activities to generate disease awareness. Several challenges in the implementation of these steps at the grassroots level were overcome with the involvement of multiple governmental and private sectors. The grassroots workers were the backbone in the management of the pandemic in rural areas. Despite taking various steps to combat COVID-19, we may not have been able to prevent or control the waves of COVID-19.
