COVID-19 contact tracing roadblock for Bhubaneswar municipal corporation

However, the civic body has not been able to effectively carry out contact tracing of the infected persons to track and isolate their immediate contacts. 

BHUBANESWAR: Poor contact tracing continues to remain a reason of concern in the State Capital even as the city’s frequency of tests and recovery rate is improving. Bhubaneswar reported 395 Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, including 116 quarantine cases and 279 local transmissions. The new cases pushed the city’s Covid tally to 16,240. The number of recoveries during the period remained at 604, bringing down the number of active cases to 4,735. 

Civic officials said more than 4,427 samples were tested during this period. Similarly, the city reported 480 cases from 3,400 tests on Saturday. As many as 460 and 413 positive cases were found from 3,987 and 4,427 samples that were tested on September 10 and 11 respectively. The average cases of recoveries during this period also remained more than 400. 

However, the civic body has not been able to effectively carry out contact tracing of the infected persons to track and isolate their immediate contacts. An official from the BMC said though there are 24 persons involved in contact tracing, around 20 join the duty daily. “The others fail to join on health grounds”, he said. 

The civic body has launched a massive door-to-door drive to find out the health condition of people in non-slum areas, which will help it in containing spread of the virus. Rapid Response teams have been engaged for the same job in slum areas, he said.