Chennai Corporation starts to collect swab samples – Times of India – Chennai Telegram

CHENNAI: Greater Chennai Corporation on Friday started collecting swabs of people living in areas which have been marked as micro-containment clusters.
These are areas where two or more Covid-19 positive cases have been found leading to some of the streets being completely barricaded restricting movement of outsiders.

Around 70 such clusters have been identified across the city, corporation sources said.
As a start, swabs of residents in a containment cluster of Pudupet in north Chennai zone was taken on Friday at a primary health centre, senior officials said. Corporation commissioner G Prakash was present at the spot along with joint commissioner (health) Madhusudhan Reddy.
“This will be extended to areas in Teynampet zone next as significant number of cases have been found in Royappetah and Triplicane areas,” said a senior official.
Two senior officials confirmed this to TOI. The idea is to reduce the load of testing on the government hospitals which are witnessing a stream of patients and decentralise the testing or at least swab collection, the official said. Currently patients are being sent to Kilpauk Medical College and the swab collection at primary health centres (PHCs) would contribute to reducing the load on the hospital, another official said.
The civic body has drawn up a protocol for this. The priority for testing would be the immediate relatives or those in close contact of the Covid-19 positive patients would have to deposit their swabs. Next up would be those in the neighbourhood or those who may have contacted the patients. Those who have to deposit their swab would be asked to come to the nearest PHC at a predetermined time, corporation officials said.
The civic body is also likely to test residents who show symptoms of Covid-19 in a severe form; this would be ascertained through the doorto-door survey being carried out by the corporation health workers.
However, such swab collection at random would be done for patients only on the recommendation of a medical officer, official clarified.
As on Thursday, officials of the corporation have conducted verification of 67.56 lakh households (cumulatively) across the city.
Totally, 1,973 people have been found with symptoms of Covid-19. However, 1312 have been cured, while 661 are being followed up.
The commissioner said that 85% of households had been checked. “Though 1,312 have been ruled out, we will continue to follow up everyone,” he said.