COVID-19 test reports sent through SMS to ensure timely communication: Punjab health minister

Punjab Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu on Thursday said that COVID-19 test reports are being sent through SMS to ensure timely communication.

"In order to ease out the communication of the results of the COVID test, Department of Health & Family Welfare, Punjab has tied up with the Department of Governance Reforms which once the labs update results on the ICMR portal, the results are communicated to the persons via SMS through the COVA platform," said a press statement from Information & Public Relations Department, Punjab.

The Punjab Health Minister said that the messages are being sent by the Department of Governance Reforms on behalf of the Health Department. The Governance Reforms team has integrated with ICMR portal and on the update of results on the portal by the labs, messages are sent to the persons who got themselves tested.

The said process of communication through messages has already been started and till now over 1.37 lakh people have received results through SMS. This has been done to ensure timely communication of the results to the persons.

Giving details regarding the Sero-survey in containment zones/hotspots, Sidhu said that state government has planned the survey in five districts under which teams have been identified for the survey. Samples of 250 people from surveyed populations shall be collected in each of five districts (Amritsar, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Patiala & SAS Nagar).

The minister said that civil surgeons have been instructed to set up a district-level lab and to provide basic lab requirements and consumables for each district.

( With inputs from ANI )