Ahmedabad: Screening of Covid-19 'super-spreaders' begins to contain virus

In a bid to contain the spread

of coronavirus in Ahmedabad, one of the cities in Gujarat where the number of infection cases is rising, the civic body on Satuday said it has decided to once again launch its drive to screen the virus "super-spreaders.

"Super-spreaders" are those people, who are likely to spread the infection to a large number of people.

People such as vegetable vendors, medicine store owners, grocers, auto-rickshaw drivers, saloon owners, and masons will have to obtain identity cards after getting themselves tested for the virus across 18 urban health centres in the city, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) said.

They will be screened through rapid antigen tests and issued COVID-19 negative identity cards, said the civic body in a release.

Apart from them, food delivery boys and those working in super markets will have to get their RT-PCR test done.

It will be up to the agencies recruiting them or the units where they work which will be responsible for them to get their tests done at private laboratories, it further said.

A list of private laboratories, where they can get their RT-PCR tests done are provided by the AMC on its website, it said.

The drive to identify the "super-spreaders" comes at a time when the city has witnessed a spike in daily cases of late, which took its number of active cases to 784, as per the update issued on Friday evening.

A similar drive was undertaken last year during the initial months of the pandemic outbreak.

Ahmedabad city has so far reported 61,554 COVID-19 cases, 58,498 recoveries, and 2,272 fatalities, the civic body said.