BHUBANESWAR: While the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) launched second phase of its first round serological survey for the high risk groups in Bhubaneswar, seven persons of different media organisations in the city tested positive on Friday.
Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials said five employees of a media house in the age group of 24 and 35 years having link to an earlier case, have been tested positive for the virus.
Similarly, a 40-year-old employee of another media house residing in Sarala Nagar locality of Laxmisagar has been found positive along with a 30-year-old mediaperson from Kargil slum in Pokhariput. Both the patients had link with staff from their organisations who tested positive earlier. BMC clarified that all Covid positive mediapersons were in quarantine. Their contact tracing is on.
Meanwhile, in the second phase of serological survey by ICMR, 1600 samples will be collected from high-risk groups like vendors, people in service sectors, police, health and sanitation workers and mediapersons to ascertain whether there is community spread of the virus. Five ICMR teams, comprising four members each, visited different parts of the city to collect samples on Friday. Another round of the serial sero-survey will be conducted 28 days after the first round survey is completed on July 20. The samples in the second round will be collected from the same clusters but from different sets of people.