Patients’ accounts show PMC’s contact tracing to be a sham

A few COVID-19 sufferers spoken to recounted that their family members or neighbours were not contacted by the civic body’s much touted rapid response teams, let alone tested

Even the modest claims of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) are turning out too tall for their ground reality. While as per Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines, the administration should ideally track down 15 contacts of any person who tests positive for COVID-19, the civic body has declared that it reaches 12 of them. However, in contrast to this claim, first-hand accounts of patients show that very little effort is being taken to check on their contacts, unless they voluntarily submit themselves for testing and in some cases, they are left to their own resources and end up at private laboratories. Yet the civic body officials harp that they’ve got a system in place and are deploying quick response teams to do the contact tracing.

They admit that earlier paucity of staff had them grappling with the task and they barely managed to track nine contacts of each patient, but things improved since the staff of Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Ltd (PMPML) joined their forces.

However, after a 42-year-old resident of Bramha Skycity, Dhanori, tested positive for the virus, his family was not contacted by the civic body. His wife and son waited for a day and then got themselves tested at a private lab. It was only after the family pursued the matter with the authorities that a survey was conducted. Yet, many immediate contacts and neighbours of this family were left out of this survey. “We consulted our doctor and got ourselves tested,” the patient’s wife told Mirror.

On Nagar Road, about seven members of a family tested positive for the virus with a gap of several days, with each of them individually opting to get the test done after they developed symptoms. “It was my wife who developed symptoms, yet she tested negative, while my daughter and I tested positive. A few days later my wife too tested positive. Subsequently, a cousin who lived close by was found infected. Then, three members of my brother’s family tested positive. Nobody called us or checked on our contacts,” said the first to test positive from the family.

At Kothrud, the civic body’s team did reach a building where a COVID-19 case was reported. But their exercise was one of tokenism it appears. “A team came to our doorstep after a resident in the building tested positive. But they just jotting down our names and advising us to get tested. Forget 12, they barely reached three contacts of the patient,” a resident observed.

On paper, the civic body has wardlevel medical officers posted to work dedicatedly on contact tracing, backed by other staff. Pointing to the muchtouted quick response teams, Dnyaneshwar Molak, PMC’s head of solid waste management department, who is helming the contact tracing efforts, insisted, “These teams are meant to test the high-risk people. Office con-tacts or neighbours are only checked for their health indicators. We are trying to resolve glitches in the process and have put in place a separate mechanism for it. We are doing whatever is necessary.”