Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has undertaken intensive surveillance and aggressive testing to detect as many COVID-19 cases as possible and isolate them to curtail the spread of the pandemic.

So far, 133 cases have been reported from Ahmedabad with 50 new ones on Thursday morning alone. So far, six persons have succumbed to their infection in the city.

“Intensive surveillance and aggressive testing: These two approaches will ensure that we detect as many cases as possible. One case proactively detected can mean up to 10 lives saved. Assuming one positive undetected person can infect around 400 people and maybe about 3% mortality rate,” Municipal Commissioner Vijay Nehra said on Thursday.

According to him, aggressive testing was the correct strategy to deal with a pandemic such as the novel coronavirus.

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The civic body has hardened the social distancing norms by strictly regulating movement of people in the entire walled city area from where the maximum number of cases have emerged.

The AMC has identified 14 clusters or hotspots where intensive surveillance, mass testing and contact tracing of infected persons are carried out with enhanced focus.

Every person entering or exiting the walled city clusters has to face thermal gun testing and if the temperature is found above normal, the person has to undergo other tests.

The civic body has rolled out mobile COVID-19 testing vans in each zone of the city to test people and collect samples.