Mumbai: As Covid-19 cases rise, BMC plans screening of vendors again

During the second wave, the BMC had screened high-risk people, such as vendors, auto, taxi and bus drivers, to arrest the spread of the disease. File pic

The BMC is now planning to screen vegetable vendors, shopkeepers, hawkers as well as auto, taxi and bus drivers and conductors, who come into contact with scores of people daily, so that the risk of them becoming superspreaders is reduced. The decision comes in view of the rise in COVID-19 cases.

A senior official from the civic health department said, "Currently we are following the Central government's guidelines but there are some steps which should be taken at a local level to prevent the spread of the disease. Even as there are no restrictions in place now, we have to be very careful because sudden outbursts of cases will lead to panic, which we want to avoid."

In the past week, the city has reported 562 new cases of COVID-19 and the positivity rate has increased to 1 per cent. However, most of the patients are asymptomatic and do not require hospitalisation. While there has not been a big spike, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is taking all efforts to avert a sudden outburst of cases. The civic body has already got in touch with general practitioners asking them to refer suspected cases for testing.

Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani said, "To break the chain of COVID-19 in the second wave, we had screened high-risk people such as vendors, BEST bus drivers and conductors, auto and taxi drivers, and hawkers who come in contact with many people. If there is a constant rise in cases, we are planning to conduct screening of such groups once again."

There are around 2.5 lakh people who are at a higher risk of contracting or passing it on to others. In November 2020, when the BMC screened these high-risk people, 150 vendors were found infected within a week.

Apart from this, the civic body is also conducting genome sequencing of suspected patients. Dr Mangala Gomare, executive health officer of the BMC, said they have directed all the health officers to look after patients suffering from influenza-like illnesses and severe acute respiratory infections and send their samples for whole genome sequencing.

562
No. of new cases in the city in the past week