To avert local transmission post lab staff testing positive...
CCpur mounts stringent contact tracing exercise
Source: The Sangai Express

CCpur, July 23 2020: Churachandpur has since last evening mounted a massive contact tracing exercise to avert chances of Covid-19 spread at community level, after it became evident that a private laboratory staff had tested positive.

Meanwhile, the District Magistrate today clamped a total curfew in the entire district of Churachandpur until further notice.

Advance Diagnostic, a privately run laboratory, attended to more than 600 clients since July 11, when a staff member is assumed to have been contracted the virus.

CCpur mounts stringent contact tracing exercise

As the contact numbers of their clients were not recorded by the clinic, tracing over 600 people drawn from across the district is proving to be a mammoth task prompting the health authorities to resort to issuing a public notice and calling on whoever visited the clinic to voluntarily report their details and remain in home quarantine until they are tested and their results known.

Details of 615 individuals whose names were recorded by the clinic have also been circulated in social media with a call to help in their identification.

Some of the addresses given are however vague enough to give the authorities a headache as there are cases where just 'CCpur' was written on the address column.

The public notice issued today by the CMO called on all individuals who have visited Advanced Diagnostics, IB Road in between July 11 and 20 to report to them or the district administration in public interest and in order to prevent further spread of the virus.

The test schedule for those who do so will be intimated by the SDOs concerned, it said and added that they are informed to maintain strict home quarantine until then.

The CMO Churachandpur, Dr VC Pau said all clients of the private lab as and when identified will be tested.

The male staff of the private lab who had tested positive for Covid-19 was lodged at the Covid Care Centre Churachandpur but later shifted to Imphal as he had developed the virus symptoms, he added.

Soon after realising the threat of local transmission in the district following the lab technician's case yesterday, the district administration has summoned back to back meetings with administrative officials, Health Department, and CSOs to discuss the situation.

Though some said the test may be started today itself, it became clear by the evening that the test has been scheduled for a later date.

Meanwhile the streets in the district wore a deserted look after 2 pm today as the State's second spell of lockdown became effective.

The never before seen response to the lockdown may well have been linked with the threat of possible local transmission, as it has never been this effective all this while.