In a fresh development, the Gautam Budh Nagar administration will adopt the containment model of Agra and Bhilwara, Rajasthan. The first case of Covid-19 to be reported from Noida on March 12 was that of a tour guide.
The 300 surveillance and containment teams started conducting a survey of 12 clusters in the district from where Covid-19 cases were reported.
One of the first clusters of six COVID-19 patients in India was of those who had come in contact with a COVID-19 patient from Delhi with a travel history to Italy. He tested positive in Agra on March 2.
Within 10 days, 350 teams of health and other government officials surveyed over 12 lakh people in Agra, and 1,000 suspected patients were identified and their samples collected. Agra has a total of 62 positive cases until Tuesday.
According to the official, who handled the first cluster of Covid-19 in Agra, there was no set model at that time to contain the spread.
“When the first cluster was identified in Agra, we had immediately constituted 350 teams to survey and screen people. Immediately, the next day, a group of 16 Italians tourists was found positive for the infection and they had stayed in a hotel in Agra. Our teams stayed in the hotel to sanitize and trace all persons who visited the hotel during the stay of the Italian group. We provided training to all hotels in Agra to handle the situation,” Dr Vikasendu Agarwal, state surveillance officer, Lucknow, said.
“There was no model for us to follow when we devised our own containment process. Agra hosts lakhs of foreign tourists, so it was a difficult task but we did it successfully,” Agarwal said.
Whereas in Bhilwara, the first Covid-19 case, of a private hospital doctor, was reported on March 19. The district since then has gone on to have the second-highest number of Covid-19 cases in Rajasthan. But only one case was found positive after March 31. All positive cases are linked to the hospital which includes 19 hospital staff and their relatives.
Within eight days of the first case, 1,135 teams were constituted which surveyed over 75,000 houses, screened 365,600 persons in Bhilwara district. By March 31, samples of around 1,400 people were collected and tested.
