BMC Ramps Up Covid Testing at Educational Institutions

Bhubaneswar: Further strengthening its fight against the Covid-19 pandemic with a motto of ‘testing, tracing and treatment’, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has been conducting testing camps (RT-PCR and Rapid Antigen) in educational institutions, especially schools that reopened recently for physical classes to prevent transmission.

The Civic Body has ramped up mass testing of students and staff in the State Capital following the direction of Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Singh in the wake of new Omicron variant of coronavirus detected in the country.
Acting as per the direction, Purandar Nanda (North Zone), Mahendra Kumar Badhai, Zonal Deputy Commissioner (South-East Zone), Rabi Narayan Jethy, Zonal Deputy Commissioner (South-West Zone) have asked their testing teams to speed up testing by covering each and every educational institutions in their respective zones. They are visiting these testing camps and monitoring the situation every day to ensure maximum coverage and early detection of the virus.

In North Zone, the testing has covered at Ashram School, Rasulgarh, Ashram School, Nayapalli, Prabhuji English Medium School, Institute of Hotel Management, VSS Nagar, Jaydev College, Nahar Kanta, Biju Patnaik College, Jayadev Vihar, GGP Colony High School, VSS Nagar High School etc.

Similarly, Covid-19 testing camps being held at RD Women’s University, Maharshi College of Natural Law, Unit-IX Boy’s School, Badagada High School and Capital High School, among others.

Likewise, the Civic Body is conducting such testing camps at DAV School, Unit-8, IRC Village High School, Saraswati Sishu Mandir, Nayapalli (Ward-23), Tapoban High School, Paika Nagar High School near Delta Square under South-West Zone. Till today, about 1500 testing has already been conducted at each zone.
These institutions were asked to isolate students or staff having symptoms and immediately contact authorities for testing of the Covid suspects as well as their close contacts. Also, authorities of institutions were directed to remain in constant touch with local health workers and doctors of their localities and report any suspect case immediately.

This apart, random testing is being carried out in tribal hostels, offices of private organizations, markets and apartments etc. to check transmission.
As physical classes had started for classes 10 and 12 on July 26, class 11 from October 21, class 8 from October 25 and classes 6 and 7 students from November 15, the BMC keeps a vigilant eye to check further transmission of coronavirus.

Notably, a testing kiosk was put up again at Biju Patnaik International Airport (BPIA) last week for helping passengers with travel history to ‘at risk’ countries for the Omicron variant to undergo on-the-spot testing.