On detecting a corona-positive person in the city, the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) plans to track down at least 20 people as part of the contact tracing process. At a web meeting on Thursday, the civic chief directed 23 health posts to complete contact tracing within 72 hours.
Turbhe Store, under the Turbhe ward of NMMC, has been put under the red zone by the central government. The civic body paid special attention to this area and carried out extensive contact tracing of those found corona-positive. "We reached 28 people who had come in close contact with the corona-positive patient in the area and checked their health condition and whoever showed symptoms was subjected to a swab test," said a senior NMMC official. He added that even those with minor symptoms were put in institutional quarantine.
Such extensive contact tracing yielded success and in 15 days, the spread of the virus was controlled in the area. "We called it theTurbhe Pattern," said the official.
Now, the civic administration is implementing the same pattern in the rest of the city. "While various measures are being taken to curb the rising number of the corona cases, the Turbhe Pattern will help curbing the growing prevalence of corona in the city," said Municipal Commissioner Annasaheb Misal..
According to the senior civic official, as per the civic chief order, the 23 health posts under the NMMC will reach at least 20 persons who have come in close contact with the corona positive patients. "The process of contact tracing will be completed within 72 hours, as, the sooner a person with symptoms is found and treatment is begun, the sooner the corona chain can be broken," said the official. "At present, we are tracing 28 contacts of a person who is Covid-positive and this is how the spread is being effectively controlled," said the official.
Meanwhile, prior to the announcement of a 10-day lockdown in the entire NMMC area on July 3, a seven-day lockdown had already been declared in 12 special containment zones from June 29 onwards, where a large number of cases were found. During this period, door-to-door mass screening campaigns were conducted in those 12 zones and more than one lakh citizens underwent testing and corona suspects were isolated.
On July 9, there were 237 new cases in the NMMC area. The total number of positive cases has reached 8,515. However, the number of active cases is 3,157, with a 60% recovery rate. Meanwhile, Zone 2 of Navi Mumbai Police took action against 513 people under section 188 of the Indian Penal Code and against 487 under the Motor Vehicles Act in the last 24 hours, for breaking lockdown norms.
