BMC starts Covid test of citizens in Mumbai with travel history during Ganesh festival

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is keeping an eye on citizens who have travelled to neighbouring districts during the Ganesh festival. This week, 272 people who travelled to the Konkan region from Mumbai have been found Covid positive in Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg districts.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is keeping an eye on citizens who have travelled to neighbouring districts during the Ganesh festival. This week, 272 people who travelled to the Konkan region from Mumbai have been found Covid-19 positive in Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg districts. Following this, all ward officers have been instructed to run RT-PCR tests on people with travel history in the city.

A BMC health worker collects swab samples for Covid-19 test of passengers arriving on outstation trains at Dadar station, in Mumbai. (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT PHOTO)

For Ganesh festival, a large number of citizens travel to their respective native towns in and around Mumbai. Although the seven-day positivity rate in Mumbai stands at 1.5%, there are some districts like Ahmednagar (5.3%), Pune (5%), Sangli (4%) which are still recording high infection rate. This makes them vulnerable to contracting Covid-19. So, to curb the transmission rate, BMC has already started identifying such individuals. Ward officers are sending their health officers for door-to-door inspections especially in areas with a high population with recent travel history.

“We generally get the travel history of the individuals when they contract Covid-19. So, this time without any delay, we have asked the ward officers to make a list of these returnees and test them immediately,” said Suresh Kakani, additional commissioner, BMC.

Prashant Sapkale, assistant municipal commissioner and in-charge of K/East (KE) ward that covers the Andheri East and Jogeshwari said that they have already boosted up the testing in the slums. “We are tracking the recent travellers in the areas with high Marathi population. If anyone is showing any symptoms like fever and cough, we are immediately isolating the suspected patient,” he said.

BMC has also instructed officials to tighten the testing in railway and bus stops which record the highest number of floating population. “Early detection of patients helps to stop the chain of transmission among the crowd. So, we will also randomly run rapid antigen tests in crowded places including malls, markets among others,” said Kakani.

At present, the city has around 4,800 active Covid-19 patients who are on treatment. Of these, 60% of them are symptomatic and around 390 of them are critical.