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

Ahmedabad, Apr 8 () After several COVID-19 caseswere found in specific pockets of Ahmedabad city, the civicbody has decided to screen all the people living in the oldcity area, also known as the walled city, as part of its megadrive on Thursday, officials said.

Ahmedabad has several Muslim-dominated areas, likeKalupur, Jamalpur, Dariyapur and Gomtipur, where somelocalities were already 'cluster quarantined' after a numberof COVID-19 patients were found in quick succession.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"We are following South Korea's pattern of aggressivetesting. It's called 'chasing the virus' strategy. We areaiming to identify all the cases through an intensesurveillance and testing mechanism. Within two days, we havecollected 1,250 samples," he said. PJTNP NP