Mass testing for COVID-19 to take place at Bengaluru’s Padarayanapura ward

The ward has the worst-affected containment zone in the city, accounting for more than 25% of Bengaluru’s cases.
Mass testing for COVID-19 to take place at Bengaluru’s Padarayanapura ward
Mass testing for COVID-19 to take place at Bengaluru’s Padarayanapura ward

Authorities in Bengaluru will be undertaking mass testing in Padarayanapura ward of the city, as random tests are returning positive and the ward already reporting a high number of COVID-19 cases.

The mass testing is scheduled to start from Wednesday, May 13. The ward is among 19 wards in Bengaluru which have a containment zone. It is the worst affected containment zone with 49 cumulative cases to date from the cluster. This is more than 25% of the total cases in Bengaluru, which stood at 186 as of Tuesday evening.

“We are not planning to take samples from every household in the ward. That is not possible. The Health Commissioner and senior BBMP officials will take a decision on the detailed method on the basis of which we will approach this mass testing program. At first, we will go for every 10th or 12th house and see how the results are coming,” Dr Vijayendra, BBMP Chief Health Officer, told TNM. 

However, authorities did not give a number of approximate tests they want to carry out on a daily basis from the area.

Initially, the whole ward was sealed along with Bapuji Nagar ward. Till date, at least six patients in the ward outside the present containment zone have tested positive. 

So far, a total of 216 patients have been tested as part of the random testing program in the ward, confirmed Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Commissioner Anil Kumar.

It may be recalled that the ward, which had some people who had attended the Tablighi Jamaat meeting testing positive saw incidents of violence over a disagreement of quarantining procedure. Among the 120-odd persons who were arrested for the violence had also tested positive for COVID-19..

The BBMP Commissioner explained that the civic body has geo-located all the patients who have tested positive from the ward. 

“Based on areas which have a high concentration of these patients, we will do prioritised testing,” he told TNM.

While the initial 70 such tests came back negative, subsequent tests of people who are neither contacts of persons or have relevant travel history have started testing positive starting from April 28.

The random testing was carried out as part of the state health’s department initiative to check for community transmission in areas with a high density of patients.

In the beginning, only persons who were identified as primary and secondary contacts of the COVID-19 patients were being tested, based on their symptoms after they were put in quarantine. TNM has earlier reported how testing of these samples will be done at the Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology.

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