Nagpur: The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has claimed it successfully traced over 5,000 close contacts but not many of them are willing to get themselves tested, officials said.
The mobile vans deployed in different areas too are not getting good response despite zonal medical officers appealing to residents and close contacts through different mediums.
Following a spike in cases, the NMC decided to increase testing, focus on close contacts of those testing positive and also check what it calls superspreaders like vendors, vegetable sellers, delivery boys, and housemaid.
The rapid response teams (RRTs) have been able to trace many in door-to-door survey.
The measures increased the number of testing at all the public labs. The labs processed 4,069 samples on Wednesday. These were the collections from Tuesday and the impact of Wednesday will be seen on Thursday. The testing was around 2,000 and below in the last few days.
The NMC is targeting at least 100 RTPCR tests from each of the 11 mobile vans deployed in each of the 10 zones. An additional van is sent to one of the nine emerging hotspots or crowded markets as per the need.
Some of the vans were also deployed near housing schemes reporting high number of cases.
The highest sample collection was 78 by one of the mobile vans.
Additional municipal commissioner Ram Joshi said he visited the Mangalwari zone and found over 70% of close contacts willing to get themselves tested. “Our teams are trying to convince rest of the close contacts too. Due to high number of cases, it is not possible to reach out to each close contact in one day. It is a continues process and goes on for a couple of days,” he said.
Regarding mobile vans, Joshi said, “We are expecting 100 or more samples from each van. Yet, to start with, the response is not bad. Hope people will come forward,” he said.
Meanwhile, zone officials said the they were entrusted with both contact tracing and testing at mobile vans, thus adding to their workload.