BMC starts rapid antigen testing at urban health centres

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Tuesday started rapid antigen testing of local residents at nine urban health centres as the Odisha capital has reported a surge in COVID-19 cases, an official said.

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Tuesday started rapid antigen testing of local residents at nine urban health centres as the Odisha capital has reported a surge in COVID-19 cases, an official said. The city has so far reported 4,171 COVID-19 cases of which 1,339 cases are active as 2,807 people have recovered from the disease and 22 have died.

BMC has appealed to citizens to come to their nearest urban health centres (UPHC/UCHC) and get the testing done free of cost for COVID-19. While nine centres started operating on Tuesday, seven more will start functioning from Wednesday, the official said.

Of the nine local health-care facilities, six are Urban Primary Health Centres (UPHCs) and three are Urban Community Health Centres (UCHCs). While the UPHCs include Niladri Vihar, Pokhariput, Saheed Nagar, Unit III, Unit-VIII and Unit IX, the UCHCs where the tests for COVID-19 were carried out Tuesday, are UCHCs at Dumduma, Patia and Unit IV. A total 107 tests were done at the nine centres during the day, he said.

Seven more urban health centres will be added for the testing from Wednesday at UPHC IRC Village, Ghatikia, Kalpana Square, Brahmeshwar Patna, Kapilaprasad, Chandrasekharpur and Municipality Hospital in Old Town (UCHC). COVID-19 testing at the UCHCs and UPHCs is necessitated so as to augment the testing facilities and more and more people can be tested as the civic body has taken up the fight against the pandemic with the active support of the community, the official said.

While the testing centres (UCHC & UPHC) are open from 8 am to 2 pm, the tests are being carried out free of cost by the civic authorities. Three types of tests like Swab tests (RT-PCR), Antigen and TrueNaat are done every day at various centres across the city. Till Monday more than 75,000 tests were done in the city, the official said.