12.59 per cent of India's COVID-19 tests done in Mumbai: BMC

The Brihanmumbai Municipal

Corporation (BMC) on Thursday claimed that it had conducted over 27,000 COVID-19 tests, which is 12.59 per cent of the total number of tests carried out in the country so far.

In a press release, the civic body also claimed that there has been no community transmission of the infection in Mumbai, which has reported over 2,000 coronavirus cases so far.

It had conducted 27,397 COVID-19 tests till April 13, against 2,17,554 tests carried out across the country, the BMC said.

This shows that 12.59 per cent of the total number of tests conducted across the country were carried out in Mumbai alone, it said.

 

The civic body further informed that it had decided to conduct tests for asymptomatic patients only after seven days of quarantine to avoid the possibility of "false negatives".

"It is observed that test results of asymptomatic patients often came out negative if they were conducted within seven days of quarantine. In medical terms such tests are called false negative," the release stated.

Until now, the BMC was conducting swab tests of high- risk contacts of positive patients as soon as they were quarantined.

According to the release, the civic body has set up 97 fever clinics across the city and 3,585 persons were screened at these facilities, which are located near containment zones where one or more COVID-19 cases were reported.

Of the 912 persons tested at these clinics, only five were found to be positive, thus ruling out the possibility of community transmission, the civic body claimed.

"Since the fever clinics are located in congested areas and slum pockets in the city, where only five out of 912 persons tested positive for COVID-19, it shows that only 0.54 per cent people were infected. This shows that there is no community transmission in Mumbai municipal limits," it said.

The release also stated that over 6,000 people had used the civic body's helpline for medical advice about coronavirus.