The head of the local healthcare authority of Italy's southern city Foggia has decided to set up a mobile unit in the Borgo Mezzanone shantytown, inhabited by migrant day laborers, for COVID-19 testing after some of those living there tested positive for the virus.
The local healthcare authority of Italy's southern town Foggia has decided to set up a "drive-through" unit to test for COVID-19. The unit is open for a few hours every day in the Borgo Mezzanone informal settlement, which houses over 2,000 migrant day laborers working in the fields nearby.
Some inhabitants of the shantytown have tested positive in recent days. The decision for the "drive-through" testing was made after a meeting on Tuesday afternoon at the prefect's office of the provincial committee for public order and security. The regional civil protection and the ARESS regional social and security agency took part in the meeting.
Isolation units to be activated
Among the initiatives decided on was to activate temporary isolation units near the informal settlement for suspected cases and close contacts of those who test positive while waiting to be transferred.
The local health authority also intends to "allocate in an exclusive manner one of the 118 anti-COVID units and two special units for continuing assistance (USCA), tasked with COVID-19 tests, to the Borgo Mezzanone settlement," it noted in a statement.
Extension of volunteer association activities
Volunteer associations such as Intersos have been asked to extend their activities for doctors in the area and to recruit cultural mediators to facilitate doctor-patient relations.
Better solutions are also sought for measuring body temperatures in the "main informal business activities in the ghetto" or on the bus between Foggia and Borgo Mezzanone, used by day labourers working in the fields.
"It will be the task of employers to systematically measure their employees' temperatures before their work shift," the statement added.() (ANSA).