As many as seven COVID-19
cases were detected among essential service providers, who were screened as potential "super spreaders", under the campaign launched by the local body in Gujarat's Ahmedabad city, a senior official said on Wednesday.
At least 4,741 persons were screened and 551 samples collected in the last two days, as part of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation's campaign targeting vegetable vendors, grocery and medicine shop owners, petrol pump attendants and garbage collectors, who are categorised as potential "super spreaders", municipal commissioner Vijay Nehra said.
Super spreaders are people who may have contracted the infection and are likely spread the virus to several others because of their work profile, he said.
"We recently launched a campaign to target super spreaders and have so far detected seven such cases," Nehra said.
On Tuesday, the AMC screened 2,576 such people and collected 413 samples, out of which three were found to be positive, while out of 2,165 persons screened and 141 samples tested, four came out positive on Wednesday, he said.
"If we had not detected these seven people, they could have infected thousands within weeks. We will continue to keep an eye on such super spreaders," he said.
The AMC has achieved an average of 2,600 tests per million, one of the highest in the country, the civic chief claimed.
Nehra further said the city will get a new COVID-19 care centre since the management of the exiting one was taken over by the state government.
"The AMC team will manage a new COVID-19 care centre with a capacity of 4,000 beds at Haj House in another one week," he said.
The bed capacity of SVP Hospital under the AMC was increased from 500 to 1,000 beds, he said, adding that if required, the testing capacity of the laboratory there will also be increased.
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