Tests on asymptomatics after 5 days of quarantine: BMC

Mumbai's civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, has decided to conduct tests for asymptomatic patients for coronavirus only after five days of quarantine to avoid the possibility of "false negatives".

Until now, the BMC was conducting swab tests of high-risk contacts of coronavirus positive patients as soon as they were quarantined.

"It is observed that test results of asymptomatic patients often came out negative if they were conducted within five days of quarantine. In medical terms such tests are called false negative," the BMC said in a release on Thursday.

Asymptomatic people (who don't show symptoms of the disease) will now be tested after the fifth day of the 14-day quarantine period.

The BMC claimed it had conducted over 27,000 COVID-19 tests, which is 12.59 per cent of the total number of tests carried out in the country so far.

The civic body also claimed that there has been no community transmission of the infection in Mumbai, which has reported over 2,000 coronavirus cases so far.

The BMC had conducted 27,397 COVID-19 tests till April 13, against 2,17,554 tests carried out across the country, the release said.

According to the release, the civic body has set up 97 fever clinics across the city and 3,585 persons were screened at these facilities, which are located near containment zones where one or more COVID-19 cases were reported.