PUNE: Altogether 422 people have so far tested Covid positive during a special drive conducted in 109 ‘hotspot villages’ across 13 tehsils of the district on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“All these people are asymptomatic and they have been admitted to Covid care centres of the respective tehsils. If we had not conducted the tests, these people would have mingled with other villagers. This would have resulted in a surge of cases,” said Ayush Prasad, chief executive officer of the Pune zilla parishad (ZP)
“Though the positivity rate is low, we can’t rule out the spread of the virus. We have now decided to continue with the mass-scale Covid testing in the district,” he added.
The ZP tested 20,925 people during the two-day drive in the “hotspot villages”. The district administration earmarks a village with 10 or more active Covid cases as a “hotspot village”.
The maximum number of positive cases was found in Ambegaon and Junnar tehsils. “Collectively, 107 positive cases have been found in the two tehsils during the two days. Mobility of farmers in these tehsils is more. They go to different vegetable markets to sell their harvest. This could be one of the main reasons behind the scenario,” Prasad said.
This was the first time the ZP has adopted the mass-level testing strategy. Earlier, it had only conducted door-to-door surveys of the symptomatic and asymptomatic people in villages. Prasad said the drive would be gradually intensified . “Our aim is to make more villages Covid-free. The mass-scale testing strategy will make it possible,” he said.
District health officer Dr Bhagwan Pawar said, “We conducted both the RT-PCR and rapid antigen tests during the drive. In case of a person testing positive, we carried out RT-PCR test of his or her family members, close contacts and acquaintances,” he said.
Velha is the only tehsil in the district not reporting any Covid positive case. “The overall positivity rate of this tehsil is very low. Limited people from this tehsil commute to other areas and cities. As a result, the spread of Covid has been under control. It had only two ‘hotspot villages” said Dr Ambadas Devkar, tehsil health officer of Velhe.
Over 2,500 teams, consisting of doctors, nurses and health workers, were involved in the drive by the zilla parishad.
Rural Pune’s Covid positivity rate has been over 7% for the past four weeks. It is still under the Level 4 restrictions. All tourist spots and destinations are still closed for people. Hotels, restaurants and eateries are not permitted to dine in rural Pune that covers 13 tehsils and 14 municipal councils.
