Chennai Corporation opens 37 walk-in sample collection centres

Residents of the city need not go to private labs for voluntary COVID-19 tests anymore as the Greater Chennai Corporation has opened up its sample collection centres for those who fear exposure to the virus or are willing to undergo voluntary tests.

“Earlier, samples of residents were taken only if they were found to be the contacts of infected persons or recommended by the field officials for testing. Now, anyone can go to the sample collection centres and give their swabs for testing. We were not collecting samples from voluntary residents,” a Chennai Corporation official said.

The official added that those who want to test their samples could walk-in to the collection centres and provide their samples along with their address and contact details. There are 37 sample collection centres run by the civic body.

It may be noted that the civic body has been changing its testing strategy based on the need and situation since the COVID-19 outbreak in the city. During the initial phases, all the persons, who were identified as contacts of infected persons were tested. Also, testing was done on the residents living around the house of infected persons. Then family members and contacts were tested only if they had any symptom.

“Apart from testing symptomatic contacts, we are also testing persons, who are identified with symptoms during our door-to-door survey and at fever camps. As we opened up the sample collection centres, residents can undergo testing without doctors’ prescriptions or recommendations of field level

 officials,” the official said.

However, personnel at the sample collection centre would take samples only if the person has any one of the 18 symptoms, including loss of taste and smell, body pain, fever, cough and cold. They need not be the contacts of infected persons.

Meanwhile, the civic body is also testing the traders in markets for the virus to prevent another outbreak from the marketplaces. “Also, we have asked managements of supermarkets, big shops and other private companies to test their employees at their own cost or send them to our facilities for testing,” the official said.

The positivity rate in the city has come down to around 8 per cent even though the Corporation tests around 12,000 samples every day.