In the wake of a surge in Covid 19 cases, the BMC has decided to ramp up the contact tracing of infected persons. Following BMC Commissioner Dr Iqbal Singh Chahal's instructions after the warning of a possible fourth wave by medical experts, in the last 24 hours, the civic body has done 6,237 high-risk contact-tracing of patients testing positive for Covid 19.
The number of Covid-19 cases are increasing rapidly in the last few days in Mumbai. Presently, there are zero active containment zones and sealed buildings in the city. But looking at the increasing number of cases, Chahal has directed Assistant commissioners and Medical health officers of all the wards to trace and test all the citizens in contact with the affected patients. Also, the civic body will focus on making those buildings and housing societies infection-free as soon as possible.
According to the norms, teams are supposed to trace 15 high and low-risk contacts for every patient. But after a dip in infected cases there were less than 80 patients daily found in the city. So the contact tracing also went down to less than two or three contacts per positive case. In the last few days the number of Covid cases are up again. "In the first three waves, contact-tracing had played an important role to break the chain of spreading the virus. So with other measures, the BMC has once again concentrated on contact-tracing," said a health official of the BMC.
Contract-tracing involves visiting the patient’s home, screening high-risk contacts and inquiring about low-risk contacts, which can be neighbours, colleagues, etc. The war room at ward level keeps record of the contacts of positive cases, contacts them on the phone, takes details of their conditions and checks if any family members have symptoms.
