When floods hit Hyderabad in October 2020, several health camps were set up near submerged localities. Each camp had a doctor, two nurses and one support staff.
These camps would cater to health issues mostly due to water and food contamination like diarrhoea. People even complained of skin infections.
Even as the first wave of COVID subsided a few weeks before the floods in October 2020, tests were conducted at these health camps to detect the virus.
This strategy that was followed in Hyderabad during the 2020 floods has been considered to monitor the health situation in the currently-submerged areas in districts.
As per plans, senior officials who are appointed as nodal officers to eight districts, were directed to ensure that medicines and consumables are available in health facilities, and take measures to prevent water-borne and vector-borne diseases.
Preventive measures
Health officials in some flood-hit districts said that they had started taking preventive measures immediately after it started to rain. One such measure was to shift pregnant women to safer places like ‘birth waiting rooms’ at camps.
“A caution issued every monsoon is to boil water and then filter it before drinking. This is suggested even when there is no flood,” said a health official.
