22 August,2020 07:36 AM IST | Mumbai | Arita Sarkar
Health workers check temperature, oxygen level of Bamanwadi of residents at Ram Mandir road, Goregaon on Friday. Pic/Satej Shinde
In a bid to ramp up testing across the city, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to take antigen tests to all dispensaries and peripheral hospitals, for which lab technicians are currently undergoing training. Having completed almost 70,000 antigen tests, the civic body is now in the process of buying the next installment of antigen kits, which are expected to arrive next month.
Speaking to mid-day, additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani said from next week, antigen tests would be carried out free of cost for high-risk contacts of COVID-19 patients. "We will start antigen tests all over the city. We are floating the expression of interest for 50,000 kits, which will be procured in the next three weeks. We are not buying more at the moment as the rates may reduce. When needed, we'll place another order after a couple of weeks," he said.
Earlier, antigen tests were largely carried out in Containment Zones in north Mumbai, major civic hospitals and centres dedicated to COVID-19 patients. In the rest of the city, such tests were conducted for the police, conservancy workers and civic staff.
However, barring R Central (Borivli) and R South (Kandivli) wards in the north, D (Grant Road) and C wards (Chandanwadi) currently have a higher growth rate. Recently, the civic administration gave nine wards a target of conducting 1,000 tests each, which will include both antigen and RT-PCR tests.
Elaborating on the testing protocol, Kakani said symptomatic people will undergo antigen tests first and those who test negative will undergo RT PCR tests. He said those in hospitals who have to be discharged and people who are not symptomatic but are above 50 years and have co-morbidities would undergo RT-PCR tests.
Civic officials said lab technicians are being trained in batches of 8-10 at Sion, Nair and KEM hospitals. "We started the training programme three days ago and by next week, they will all know how to carry out the antigen tests at dispensaries and peripheral hospitals," said an official. Kakani said each of the dispensaries would be given 500-1,000 kits to start with.
In the first instalment, the civic body had bought 1 lakh antigen test kits and health department officials said, currently, around 2,000 tests are being carried out each day. As on August 20, 69,818 antigen tests have been carried out and among them 3,889 have tested positive.
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