Ghaziabad plans to clear backlog of contact tracing of Covid-19 patients within a week

With rising number of Covid-19 cases, officials of the district health department are struggling to upload the contact tracing figures to the state portal. According

With rising number of Covid-19 cases, officials of the district health department are struggling to upload the contact tracing figures to the state portal. According to the department officials, they have so far updated 11,184 contacts of 2,434 patients even as the district has a total of about 3,765 Covid-19 cases till July 16.

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The Ghaziabad district has adopted a new system for speedy contact tracing, increased testing and faster referral of Covid patients to hospitals, with a view to break the chain of infections. For contact tracing, the administration had roped in the services of the district police about a week ago and 18 police officers from across the district were assigned the task along with officials from the administration and the health department.

Health department officials said they have finished uploading contact details of about 65% of the total Covid-19 patients in the district. The officials said there was slight lag in the process as cases have been rising at an average of 134 new cases per day since July 1.

“Our teams are already on job of updating the contact tracing details on to the state portal and about 97% of this data is in our manual records. Under the revamped system, I have asked them to finish the work within a week. Once that is done, it will help us track contacts and carry out testing and referrals as needed,” said Ajay Shankar Pandey, district magistrate, Ghaziabad.

The Ghaziabad district currently has a score of about 4.6 contacts per patient. The district, as of July 10, has 189 Category 1 zones ( areas with a lone Covid-19 case) and 173 Category 2 zones (areas with more than one Covid-19 case).

“The rise in number of category-2 containment zones means that the infection is being spread by positive patients to family members, relatives or acquaintances nearby. So it becomes imperative that we trace all contacts of a patient at the earliest,” said an official from the health department, on condition of anonymity.

“In the past one week, after police were made a part of contact tracing, we have traced about 500 contacts of 250 Covid-19 patients. We are helping the health department and have also traced about 90 of 120 missing patients,” said Kalanidhi Naithani, senior superintendent of police.

The contact tracing is also being done with the help of a team of six doctors -- three who are assigned to speak to patients over the phone and three to visit them. The team is stationed at a dedicated control room at the district headquarters.

“Now, for better referral of patients to the appropriate Covid hospital, we have assigned three police station areas to each of the six doctors. It will now be their responsibility to track and send ambulances so that referrals is faster. Under the earlier system, referrals were getting done over 12 to 36 hours, which is now done within 12 to 24 hours,” said the health official quoted above.

The rise in the number of Covid-19 cases is also a result of increased testing. From March 5 (when the first case was reported) to June 30, the district could conduct only 12,160 tests. During the last week of June, the district started rapid antigen testing which increased testing capabilities and also expedited results.

Until Friday morning, the total sampling/testing figures had touched 60,000 in Ghaziabad and included 27,000 rapid antigen tests.