State govt wants PMC to improve contact tracing
The PMC officials have also accepted that its current contact tracing is around 8-9 persons per positive case though it needs to improve.
With Pune crossing the 20,000-mark of Covid cases – half of them coming in just 18 days – the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has decided to focus more on its contact tracing and ramp up its health infrastructure to avoid a situation that Mumbai is witnessing.
On Saturday, Pune reported 819 Covid-19 positive cases, taking its overall tally to 20,668 while the overall death toll to 703. According to state surveillance officer Dr Pradeep Awate, Pune’s contact tracing is lower to the state average and needs to improve. The PMC data suggests that the source of infection among 21.35 per cent cases is unknown.
“Pune could do better on contact tracing which is the only way to break the chain of Covid-19 transmission. While the state’s average of contact tracing is about 21 per positive cases Pune’s is much lower. Every person who came in contact with a positive person two days before the onset of the symptoms must be tested as per ICMR guidelines. There should be no fixed number of contact tracing but every person who might have come in contact with the patient must be screened thoroughly. While in June we collected over 14,000 samples daily, as of Saturday we collected close to 26,000 samples in one day. It is obvious that as the movement of people raises the number of positives will increase but aggressive contact tracing will ensure early detection and to contain the spread further. This is what Pune should also do to ensure that the chain breaks,” said Awate.
The PMC officials have also accepted that its current contact tracing is around 8-9 persons per positive case though it needs to improve.
Shekhar Gaikwad, PMC commissioner said, “Yes it is true that our contact tracing is close to 8-9 contacts per positive person. However, we are only following the ICMR guidelines which state testing only symptomatic patients and asymptomatic on every 5th day which means there is a lapse of 5 days. We are also trying to increase our testing capacity, now that we have the rapid antigen detecting kits so at least 1,000 samples will be tested through these kits by next week which will increase the number of positives but also ensure better contact tracing. We are putting in more beds at the Covid care centres but the logistics like mattresses, pillows and beds are a huge issue.”
