Panaji, May 21 (IANS): With a steep increase in the number of Covid patients under home isolation in wake of the surge in cases, the Goa government has now roped in technology to keep track of their health status, Health Secretary Ravi Dhawan said on Thursday.

A private agency has been roped in to set up an automated IVRS system to reach Covid patients in home isolation, he said.

"We have around 18,500 people in home isolation as of now. Recently when home isolation cases went up, it was becoming difficult to call each and everyone and track their status as frequently as we would have liked. So the government took a decision to go for a technology-based system to regularly track and follow up with patients under home isolation," Dhawan told reporters.

"We have selected one agency by the name of 'Step 1'. The agency is already providing the services to 11 states on a charitable basis and the only cost to the government is the call charges that will be paid directly to BSNL," he added.

Patients in home isolation will be receiving calls via IVRS from the second to the 10th day, which will pose a set of five questions related to oxygen blood saturation, temperature, whether there is any chest pain, breathlessness or cold and cough more than thrice over an interval of 24 hours.

"We've taken care to ensure that since all will not know English, the calls will be made in three languages -- English Hindi or Konkani," he said.

"The idea is to get the patients who are deteriorating, to not deteriorate further. We will be launching this service on Saturday," he said.