BMC adds 4 more rapid response teams to speed up contact tracing
Bhubaneswar: To reduce the time taken to trace contacts of Covid patients, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has set up four more Rapid Response Teams (RRTs).
With this, the number of RRTs here has increased to 14.
“Contact tracing of patients is taking more than 24 hours at present. More RRTs can bring down this time to under 24 hours,” a BMC official said.
An RRT comprises medical professionals with specialization in community medicine, Ayush doctors, nurses and auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs). Each RRT team has four to five professionals and their job is both static and mobile.
“The bulk of the day’s contact tracing is done by the RRTs. It takes time to trace the primary contacts of Covid patients. We had 10 RRTs and we added four so that contact tracing can be achieved in less than 24 hours,” said BMC commissioner Prem Chandra Chaudhury.
When people coming from abroad or outside the state are placed under quarantine, the RRTs also have to visit them to see if they are adhering to Covid-19 protocol. During these visits, the RRTs check to see if they have broken quarantine rules and met people. If they have, the RRTs take the necessary phone numbers and addresses from them, said a BMC officer.
The job of the RRTs begins from the time they get the data of Covid positive persons. “We were managing with 10 teams but things got difficult when the number of cases surged past the 100 mark. This caused the contact tracing exercise to slow down. To reduce the time needed for contact tracing, which actually helps us narrow down the number of Covid suspects, more manpower was required,” the commissioner added.
The BMC officials said the RRTs also helped move Covid patients to hospitals. Also, there are instances of people in home isolation not adhering to the norms. In that case, the RRTs take the help of neighbours to keep an eye on the indisciplined persons. The RRTs also talk to the Resident Welfare Associations and slum committees on people in home quarantine, an officer said.