'Collect details of customers with COVID like symptoms': Telangana Govt to pharmacies

Hyderabad: The Municipal Administration and Urban development (MAUD) department of Telangana government, has issued a memo directing the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) to instruct all medical shops, to record phone number and address of customers. 'Customers with COVID like symptoms visiting the pharmacies should be identified by the chemist , also one must maintain a database of customers purchasing medicine for cold, cough and fever' said the government .

In order to do so, the MAUD has directed the GHMC officials to convene a meeting with the pharmacies, medical shop owners and chemists. 'The data base thus collected by the medical shops will be submitted to GHMC and then based on symptoms the GHMC will decide how many should be tested' a statement said.

The MAUD officials in its statement said, “It is imperative to follow up on these cases which are suffering from fever and other symptoms, which might be similar to COVID. We must be able to contact these patients and get a test conducted depending upon the symptoms.”

The MAUD authorities have also mentioned that, details of the customers should be taken, duly by informing them.According to the GHMC employees, many people are hesitating to report to hospitals and approach pharmacies for medicines.

As of April 17 Health bulletin, the total number of positive cases in Telangana is 766 and yesterday around 66 were tested positive. Hyderabad the capital of the state has 286 active cases, the highest in the state