All Bengaluru students with Covid-like symptoms to be tested

Bengaluru, Sep 15 (SocialNews.XYZ) All students with Covid-like symptoms in Bengaluru will be tested for the disease, officials said on Wednesday.

Holding a meeting with members of the Paediatric Expert Committee, and the Technical Expert Committee about steps to be taken towards containing Covid-19, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Chief Commissioner Gaurav Gupta instructed authorities to check children with symptoms persisting for more than two days.

The meeting discussed precautions to be taken to prevent the Covid virus in children, how to conduct Covid tests, and separate bed arrangements for children.

It has been decided to instruct all schools in the city to identify nodal officers, to work in coordination with the health officer the primary health centre that falls in the same area as the school.

"Students with symptoms persisting for more than two days must be asked not to attend the school. If the information of children with symptoms is provided to the PHC, a team of health officials should visit the houses of the said children and conduct tests," Gupta added.

RT-PCR test is being conducted on children with symptoms persisting for more than two days in hospitals and most children have been tested negative. In this regard, guidelines from the BBMP would be issued to all hospitals about conducting tests for children and also for children who are being hospitalised due to other diseases, he said.

Vaccines should be given to those who come in contact with school-going children. This will keep everyone safe, he said.

Noting that Covid infection is not affecting children in the city much, he said that children aged 0 to 12 years have 7.21 per cent infection, while it is 8.21 per cent in 13 to 18-year-old children. Children often have symptoms such as fever, common cold, and cough during the period of infection and are cured within a week, he added.

The meeting with the committee of technical experts discussed serosurvey and genome sequencing, and the members requested detailed information regarding the serosurvey and the report will be released after collecting more info.

Meanwhile, genome sequencing has shown more number of Delta strains, and the committee has suggested continuing genome sequencing. Accordingly, the BBMP will collect samples and test them to see if any other variant is found in the city. Genome sequencing will be done by obtaining more samples from double dose vaccinated people who have been infected with Covid-19. The genome sequencing will be conducted in all the required manner and the report will be released soon.

Source: IANS