Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Chief Commissioner Gaurav Gupta, on Wednesday, stated that school children with COVID-19 symptoms persisting for more than two days will be tested. This decision was taken following a meeting with senior civic officials and members of the Paediatric Expert Committee and the Technical Expert Committee.
In a press release, Mr. Gupta directed all schools to identify nodal officers among their staff, who can coordinate with health officers in primary health centres (PHCs). 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 will visit their houses to organise testing. The BBMP will soon issue guidelines to hospitals about conducting tests for children with symptoms, Mr. Gupta said in the release.
Mr. Gupta added COVID-19 infection among children is low with infection rate among children aged between 0 and 12 being 7.21% and among 13 to 18-year-olds the figure is 8.21%.
Genome sequencing has shown more Delta strains in the city. The TEC has advised examining if any other variant is found in the city by continuing with genome sequencing. The BBMP will now obtain samples from people with breakthrough infections, the release added.
