New Delhi, June 17: The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Tuesday issued a health advisory for the domestic help in urban areas and asked them to take a short break from work in order to ensure to stay safe from coronavirus. This advisory has been issued by Health Ministry's aide to keep both the domestic help workers and the employers away from COVID-19.

The NCDC advisory said, as quoted by Hindustan Times, "Any family member working as domestic help in neighbourhood should request exemption from service for a short period of two weeks so as to ensure that neither the employer nor employee acquires and spreads COVID-19. If they are required to go to work, they should practice proper hand washing with soap and water at and after work." COVID-19 Testing Capacity in India Has Reached 3 Lakh Samples a Day: Health Ministry.

Among other things, NCDC advisory has suggested people to identify volunteers so that they can follow home quarantine for at least two weeks. The Union Health Ministry's body informed that a detailed list of those asked to go in home quarantine will be shared with local representatives. Earlier, Health Ministry had indicated that urban areas -- particularly slums -- are the most vulnerable.

On the issue of risk of spreading COVID-19 in slums, NCDC said, "For communities, inadequate shelter and overcrowding are risk factors in the transmission of diseases with epidemic potential such as Covid-19. Unauthorized colonies and Jhuggi-Jhopri clusters pose a serious human problem as a huge population is living in these colonies."

As per to the serosurvey, conducted by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), about 1.89 percent people in urban slums showed past exposure to the Sars-CoV-2 virus, which causes the infection. Meanwhile, 2011 Census says a total of 65.4 million people in 13.9 million households live in urban slums in 2,613 towns and cities.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 17, 2020 09:11 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).