E-Paper
‘Superspreader’ test drive to cover PMPML and PMC staff, school teachers
Unregistered population, including vendors and hawkers, who come in contact with multiple people to undergo the tests.
Pune: As part of the possible Covid second wave prevention measures, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has begun following the state government guidelines of identifying and testing “superspreaders”. The civic body will also cover its staff and school teachers under the drive.
The civic body will soon issue a circular and carry out testing of “superspreaders”. As per the guidelines, the testing drive will mainly cover unregistered population, including vendors and hawkers, who come in contact with multiple people.
PMC health chief Dr Ashish Bharti said, “We have collected data of some “superspreaders” during our earlier state survey of ‘My Family My Responsibility’. We will use that count and also ensure that all such people who come in contact with a large number of people are tested. The biggest challenge is to identify and test ‘superspreaders’ since most of them are vendors and hawkers who do not have licence or are unregistered.”
Additional commissioner Rubal Agrawal said, “We will include school teachers since schools are about to restart. So, for private schools, it would be compulsory to get staff tested before the classes resume. In addition, we will also test our own staff, including Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) and other employees who fall under the category of ‘superspreaders’, since they also come in contact with many people.”
Currently, PMC operates 18 testing centres across the city.
The civic administration will use both RT-PCR and Rapid Antigen Detection tests to identify “superspreaders” based on the symptoms as per the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines.
The testing exercise would put an additional burden on the civic body that is facing cash crunch. Agrawal said, “We are yet to take any policy decision regarding the cost for testing. If we get requests from banks or private organisations, they are welcome to get their staff tested at our testing centres.”
