BMC tweaks testing protocol, asymptomatic COVID contacts to be tested post isolation

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Thursday modified its testing protocol and procedure amid rising COVID-19 cases in Mumbai. It has now decided to conduct tests for asymptomatic patients only after seven days of quarantine to avoid the possibility of "false negatives". Until now, the BMC was conducting swab tests of high- risk contacts of positive patients as soon as they were quarantined. This also comes as a U-turn after BMC issued a circular on April 12 that it will prioritise testing of symptomatic high-risk contacts of Covid-19 patients over asymptomatic ones.

Notably, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guideline states that all asymptomatic high-risk contacts are to be tested between fifth and 14th day of suspected exposure. However, BMC's own data shows that at least 60% to 70% of coronavirus cases in Mumbai till now have been asymptomatic.

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No community transmission 

The civic body clarified that there has been no community transmission of the infection in Mumbai, which has reported over 2,000 coronavirus cases so far. Additionally, the circular said that it had conducted over 27,000 COVID-19 tests, which is 12.59 percent of the total number of tests carried out in the country so far.

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According to the release, the civic body has set up 97 fever clinics across the city and 3,585 persons were screened at these facilities, which are located near containment zones where one or more COVID-19 cases were reported. Of the 912 persons tested at these clinics, only five were found to be positive, thus ruling out the possibility of community transmission, the civic body claimed. The release also stated that over 6,000 people had used the civic body's helpline for medical advice about coronavirus. 

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Coronavirus cases in Mumbai

Seeing a slight dip in the number of cases in India's financial capital, Mumbai's civic body- BMC on Thursday, reported that 107 new Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases were added in the past 24 hours. The city also witnessed 3 deaths taking the city's fatalities to 116. The city tops the state with 2043 cases - amounting to Maharashtra's tally of 2919 cases and 187 deaths.

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