Bhilwara in Rajasthan was one of the early hotspots of the COVID-19 outbreak. The government responded with extraordinarily aggressive measures — and the ‘Bhilwara model’. The success of the model is attributed to the fact that Bhilwara, which was the first district in Rajasthan to report most number of covid cases has now reported only one positive case since March 30.

What is the Bhilwara Model?

• The Bhilwara COVID-19 containment “model” refers to the steps taken by the administration in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara district to contain the disease, after it emerged as a hotspot for coronavirus positive cases.
• Bhilwara district was among the most-affected places in India during the first phase of the COVID-19 outbreak.
• The measures taken by the state govt. included imposing a curfew in the district which also barred essential services, extensive screening and house-to-house surveys to check for possible cases.
• It went for detailed contact tracing of each positive case so as to create a dossier on everybody they met ever since they got infected.

What did the administration do as part of the containment strategy?

• The “Bhilwara model” of tackling COVID-19 cases involves, simply, “ruthless containment”.
• Within three days of the first positive case the district health administration in Bhilwara constituted nearly 850 teams and conducted house-to-house surveys at 56k houses and of 280k people.
• Thousands were identified to be suffering from influenza-like illness (ILI) symptoms and were kept in home quarantine.
• Intense contact tracing was also carried out of those patients who tested positive, with the Health Department preparing detailed charts of all the people whom they had met since being infected.
• The state also took the help of technology, using an app to monitor the conditions of those under home quarantine on a daily basis along with keeping a tab on them through GIS.
• The administration backed up the surveys by imposing a total lockdown on the district, with the local police ensuring strict implementation of the curfew.
• The patients were treated with hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), Tamiflu and HIV drugs.

What were the challenges the administration faced in imposing these extraordinary measures?

• The biggest challenge that the administration faced was containing the rising number of cases after the initial outbreak.
• The doctors of the private hospital who had tested positive had come into contact with numerous people including the staff and patients who visited the private hospital during the period when the doctors were already infected.
• Some of these patients had come from other states and after the first case of COVID-19 was detected.
• The government also had an uphill task ahead of them assembling the teams of doctors, auxiliary nurse and midwives and nursing students who went to conduct the house-to-house surveys.
• Owing to the fact that Bhilwara, a thriving textile city with an estimated population of 30 lakh, it was also a difficult task for the government to strictly impose the curfew uniformly in all areas.

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