Ahmedabad civic body rolls out medical surveillance vans

With new cases of coronavirus surfacing in the city and in a bid to augment testing, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) on Tuesday rolled out seven vans for carrying out intensive surveillance and collecting samples of suspected cases, officials said. Earlier in the day, the Gujarat government decided to implement a cluster containment plan across 15 localities in Ahmedabad, Bhavnagar, Vadodara and Surat in view of growing number of coronavirus cases, a week ahead of the national lockdown ends on April 14.

Meanwhile, these vans, which will cater to seven zones in the city, were flagged off from the premises of the AMC headquarters in the presence of Municipal Commissioner Vijay Nehra. Each van will be accompanied by a three-member surveillance team equipped with a thermal gun and three personnel who will collect samples. Both these teams are led by two doctors, said Nehra.

"These vans are being rolled out as part of our intensive surveillance and testing strategy. Initially, we will cover people who are living in different clusters where coronavirus patients were found. "We are planning to check each suspect and collect his/her samples using these vans by today evening," Nehra told reporters.

He said surveillance teams would first check body temperature of all the people living in a cluster using a thermal gun. "If fever is detected then that particular person will be taken into the van for sample collection. We will collect samples on the spot using these vans. This proactive surveillance will help us in testing a large number of people and thereby detecting coronavirus cases in less time," said Nehra.

Out of the total 165 coronavirus positive cases reported in Gujarat so far, the highest number of cases at 77 were reported in Ahmedabad alone. Out of the 19 cases reported across Gujarat on Tuesday, 13 were traced to Ahmedabad.

Out of the seven clusters which were put under mass quarantine in the city, three are in Kalupur and Dariyapur localities. PTI PJT PD NSK NSK.

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