Officials tracing contacts of Covid patients in Capital

Say contact tracing will help identify next cluster

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad Capital Territory Administration (ICTA) and police are compiling lists of people who have visited and met with the coronavirus patients in six sub-sectors and three business centres sealed in the capital.

The lists will help identify the emerging hotspots, officials of the ICTA said explaining, people meeting the Covid-19 patients were likely to become carriers of the virus and spread the disease in their own neighbourhoods.

Moreover, the authorities concerned are deliberating over imposing lockdown in new emerging virus hotspots including Ghauri Town, Lohi Bher, PWD Colony and Sector G-7, where more coronavirus patients are being reported, they said.

Regarding the mass coronavirus screening, they said that, more and more people are being tested in the city. As a result, it has been decided that all the travellers arriving at the Islamabad International Airport from abroad will not be tested but permitted to go to their respective areas after undergoing the screening process.

Only people showing the coronavirus symptoms will be tested for the virus, which in turn will reduce the burden of testing the travellers arriving from abroad in the capital and allow more locals to be tested for Covid-19.

Following identification of coronavirus hotspots, sectors I-8/3, I-8/4, and I-8 Markaz have been sealed. Moreover, sector I-10/1 and I-10/2 were also under lockdown since Thursday, while sectors G-9/3 and G-9/4, the Karachi Company commercial area and Sector G-9 Markaz had been sealed few days ago after 200 people had tested positive for the contagion in a single day.

The ICTA officials said that in the first phase, a list of all the people who had been living and had been in constant contact with the coronavirus patients in the affected areas is being prepared while in the second phase, a list of all the people who had been meeting people in contact with the coronavirus patients will be prepared and they will be tested for Covid-19.

Per the sources, disinfectants will be sprayed in the areas where the lockdown has been imposed and later a decision of uplifting the lockdown in the light of the analytical report in a high-level meeting of the National Health Services Ministry, concerned officers and experts of National Command Operation Centre, National Institute of Health, district management and several other institutions will be taken.

A uniform SOP and pattern has been followed for all the sealed areas, they said. The availability of all the essential items has been ensured amid the lockdown while one member of a family is permitted to buy medicines, groceries, and edible items from medical stores, kiryana, vegetable, and fruit shops.

Meanwhile, the district management has offered mobile shops facility, which allows people to receive edible items at their doorsteps. This is a great initiative for people who are unable or do not want to step outside their homes.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 20^th, 2020.