COVID-19: Ahmedabad civic body to screen residents of old city

After several COVID-19 cases

were found in specific pockets of Ahmedabad city, the civic body has decided to screen all the people living in the old city area, also known as the walled city, as part of its mega drive on Thursday, officials said.

Ahmedabad has several Muslim-dominated areas, like Kalupur, Jamalpur, Dariyapur and Gomtipur, where some localities were already 'cluster quarantined' after a number of COVID-19 patients were found in quick succession.

"While 700 health teams are already on the field to screen people, a mega drive will be launched tomorrow to cover the entire population living inside the walled city, Ahmedabad Municipal Commissioner Vijay Nehra told reporters on Wednesday.

 

At present, all the fire brigade vehicles as well as drones are being used to spray disinfectant chemical in the walled city area, he said.

"As many as 700 teams are in the field since Monday for conducting door-to-door surveillance. Tomorrow, there will be a one-day mega drive to screen each and every resident of the walled city. We will conduct check-up using hand-held thermal temperature guns," he said.

So far, 83 coronavirus positive cases have been found in Ahmedabad and four of them have died. The Centre has already declared Ahmedabad as one of the hotspots in terms of the spread of coronavirus.

"To stop the spread of virus in other parts of the city, 'Coronavirus checkposts' have been set up at 13 different entry points of the walled city since early (Wednesday) morning and everyone coming in and going out are being checked to see if they are symptomatic or not," Nehra said.

In addition, the civic body has shut down Nehru Bridge over Sabarmati river. The ever-bustling Kalupur fruit and vegetables market was also shut from Wednesday.

"We are following South Korea's pattern of aggressive testing. It's called 'chasing the virus' strategy. We are aiming to identify all the cases through an intense surveillance and testing mechanism. Within two days, we have collected 1,250 samples," he said.