BHUBANESWAR: The rising trend of Covid-19 cases from non-slum areas in the State Capital has emerged as a big challenge for the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) in the virus fight.
Of the 3,526 active cases in the city, more than 73 per cent are from non-slum areas. While 594 cases are related to slums, the rest 2,932 are from non-slum areas in the city.
The civic body reported 329 new cases in the last 24 hours in which 256 were related to local transmission from unknown sources, while 73 linked to positive cases detected earlier. However, more than 95 per cent of the cases were reported from non-slum areas.
There was a cluster outbreak of 19 cases in Nayapalli, 15 in Unit-IX, 14 in Rasulgarh, 10 each in Patia and Saheed Nagar and eight each in VSS Nagar and Badagada. As source of infection remains unknown in most of the cases, containing spread of the virus continues to remain a challenge for the civic body.
A key area of concern has been people’s tendency to remain in complete isolation during the recovery period and the BMC has been unable to keep track.
This is fuelling the transmission.There are instances where asymptomatic people or those with low symptoms are venturing out to fetch groceries and other essentials but in absence of any surveillance by BMC is clueless.
The civic body officials, however, said as cases in slums, where practice of social distancing is a major challenge, is significantly less, Covid situation in the city will improve soon.
Efforts are on to check spread of the virus in non-slum area and survey is under progress to check health condition of households and isolate persons with symptoms in these localities.
“Community participation has been increased in slums through hundreds of committees to check spread of the virus in these settlements effectively. Community participation through 110 slum and village committees in North Zone of BMC has resulted in a sustained awareness generation and fight against the Covid crisis,” said a BMC official.
The civic body has also released Rs 1 lakh budget to each ward to fight against Covid-19. The slum and village committees are being financed under the ward budget.
Meanwhile, new cases have pushed Covid-19 tally of the city to 21,526 of which 17,892 have recovered.