With a sudden spike in number of daily COVID-19 cases, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has initiated door to door High-Risk-Contact (HRC) testing in the G North ward, which covers the areas- Dadar, Dharavi and Mahim. Civic officials told, they are going door to door for tracing HRCs for the first time since the pandemic outbreak in March, last year.
"We don't want to take any risk, even if there is one single positive patient, we are tracking the contact and visiting their household directly for testing," said a civic health official of this ward.
"Earlier we used to tell them for getting their tests done, but most of them would ignore our advice, so as a proactive measure we have started to visit their households," the official added.
Presently there are nine health outposts in this ward covering the residential areas - Mahim and Dadar along with the slum belt of Dharavi. On a daily basis, one mobile van is being pressed into service in each health post, which goes door to door for conducting the tests.
The civic health official stated, presently there is no particular pattern of the spike as new cases are being reported from both slums and residential buildings in a scattered manner.
Alongside this, BMC officials have also increased the testing rate at public spaces like markets, industrial estates, restaurants and other public splaces which records heavy footfall of people.
The BMC is also conducting awareness drives by making announcements at public places through mikes.
