BMC widening scope of tracing to shopkeepers, vegetable vendors

BMC begins aggressive testing drive to find positive cases across all 24 wards in time

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) began its aggressive Covid-19 testing using rapid antigen kits across the city from Friday, testing frontline workers on priority and widening its scope of tracing to shopkeepers and vegetable vendors in high-risk and containment zones. Senior civic officials said the idea was to find positive cases within a short span and quarantine them.

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The civic body has started to test frontline workers from various health centres, including major and suburban hospitals, dispensaries, health volunteers, health workers working for prevention of other diseases, sanitation workers working under solid waste management department and sanitation workers working in slums.

Vishwas Shankarwar, deputy municipal commissioner of zone 7 (Dahisar, Borivli and Kandivli), said, “We are screening and testing all frontline workers from the zone. We are also testing shopkeepers using rapid antigen kits, as they may have come in contact with those testing positive from high-risk or containment areas. Overall, the plan is to conduct 250 tests using rapid antigen kits.”

Rapid antigen kits deliver test results within 15-20 minutes, but are less sensitive compared to RT-PCR tests. According to ICMR guidelines, every positive report from testing will be treated as ‘true positive’, while negative samples will have to be compulsorily re-tested by RT-PCR process.

BMC had procured one lakh kits in the first week of July from a South Korean firm, which was the only company approved by ICMR. On July 2, BMC had announced that it will start rapid antigen tests in five wards with most Covid-19 cases then – R-North (Dahisar), R-Central (Borivli West), R-South (Kandivli), P-North (Malad) and P-South (Goregaon). However, the plan has now been extended to all 24 administrative wards in the city, and the officials have been asked to identify areas for the tests. Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner (health), said, “We are getting positive cases within a short span, so the testing is successful. For symptomatic people who test negative in antigen testing, second analysis is done using RT-PCR so that false negatives are covered. We will surely continue antigen testing process and will procure more kits, if needed.”

Till Thursday afternoon, 9,371 people from eight wards, private hospitals and three civic-run hospitals were tested using the antigen kits. Of them, 1,214 tested positive, giving the city a positivity rate of 13%.

Meanwhile, on Friday, Mumbai reported 1,057 Covid-19 cases, followed by 54 deaths. The total number of infected cases in Mumbai has reached 106,980 and the toll is 5,984, according to the state health department data. As per BMC’s data, of the 54 deaths, six deaths were of patients below 40 years, 39 of patients above 60 years, and nine between 40 and 60 years. The data further states that 1,157 patients were discharged on Friday. A total of 78,259 patients have been discharged so far. The number of active patients is 22,443. The recovery rate is 73%. Further, the number of Covid tests done till Friday is 4.62 lakh. Meanwhile, Dharavi reported six new cases on Saturday, taking the total to 2,519. Of the total, 2,141 patients have recovered.