BMC widens scope of rapid antigen tests, extends them to vulnerable workers
Bhubaneswar: To quickly filter people suffering from Covid-19 from those who are disease-free, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to conduct the rapid antigen test among those sections of the population that are more at risk of infection. Earlier, it was conducting these tests only in hospitals.
From Saturday, around 400 antigen tests will be done on a daily basis on vulnerable people like vegetable, fish and meat vendors, factory workers, construction labourers, police and fire personnel, civic body staff and others likely to contract Covid-19 virus given the nature of their jobs.
On Saturday, fish vendors of Unit-IV fish market were administered the rapid antigen test. The BMC had last week had sealed the Unit IV fish and meat markets — the city’s biggest — as four Covid cases had been detected there.
The BMC is yet to disclose the results of the tests done on Saturday.
BMC commissioner Prem Chandra Chaudhury said the 400 tests daily would help them know the extent of the spread of the infection among people engaged in group activities. “This will help us segregate infected people from non-infected ones. The biggest advantage of the test is that the results are obtained in a short time. This will stop the spread of the virus,” he told TOI.
Earlier, the BMC had decided to use antigen tests in hospitals only for in-patients and for those admitted for the purpose of surgery. However, rising cases among the vulnerable groups prompted the BMC to increase the scope of rapid antigen testing in the city.
The commissioner further added that the antigen test, which reports true positives, was going to be helpful in factories and in the construction sector since by the time the result of the RT-PCR tests come in, the chance of an infected person spreading the virus increases.
“The antigen test result will help us make quick intervention. Construction workers work in close proximity with each other,” said an officer of BMC.
In a video release, the commissioner said the Covid situation in the slums was not as grim as it was earlier. Four slums — Mahisakhal, Trinath basti, Sitapur basti and Ganapati basti — are currently under containment.
“Against a total of 953 active cases in the city now, only 201 are from slums,” he said.
On Saturday, the city reported 111 cases out of which 62 are from quarantine (home and institutional) and 49 are local cases. This takes the city’s Covid tally to 1,828.
The number of recoveries was low on Saturday, only 29. The recovery rate now stands at 47 per cent. So far, the city has seen 863 recoveries and 11 deaths. The fresh cases reported on Saturday are isolated cases with the localities reporting one or two cases each. The patients, who were discharged on Saturday, are between the ages of three and 75 years.