The health ministry has started mass testing for the residents of Thimphu beginning today. It is to see if there is any case of coronavirus in the community before easing the lockdown restrictions in Thimphu. The capital city has been under lockdown for 27 days since the first community case was reported on 20th December last year.
The mass screening will sweep around 27,000 households in the capital. According to the health ministry’s Technical Advisory Group (TAG), the result of the mass testing will give the National COVID-19 Taskforce the required information to decide on how to go about easing the lockdown restrictions in Thimphu.
“The aim of mass screening in Thimphu is to demonstrate that there are no COVID-19 cases in the community,” said Rixin Jamtsho, Chief Programme Officer from the Department of Public Health.
He added, “it is also to facilitate phase-wise unlocking of Thimphu. We are hopeful that the mass testing will give us some level of confidence to move to the next phase of lockdown.”
The testing team will be collecting swab samples of an individual from every household in 51 zones. However, households in the buildings identified as hotspots, individuals infected by the virus before and those who got tested earlier will not be tested during mass testing.
“We have a separate team of surveillance who conducts periodic testing for the residents of buildings identified as hotspots. And individuals who tested positive for the virus at the flu clinics need not come for testing. Also, children aged five and below and elderly people aged 65 and above need not come for testing,” said Rixin Jamtsho.
37 teams including health workers and Desuups are involved in the mass testing. According to the TAG team, the zoning team and Desuups will be visiting every household to ensure an individual from every household turns up to give a sample for testing.
The ministry is expecting to collect and test all the samples in about a week’s time.
Phub Gyem
