Contact Tracing Assessment of COVID 19 Transmissions In Bhopal District

Introduction: Contact tracing is a central public health response to infectious disease outbreaks, especially in the early stages of an outbreak when specific treatments are limited. Current clinical and epidemiological data are insufficient to understand the full extent of the transmission potential of the COVID pandemic. The main advantages are that it can identify potentially infected individuals before severe symptoms emerge, and if conducted sufficiently quickly can prevent onward transmission from the secondary cases. Hence the study was undertaken. Methodology: It was a cross-sectional study conducted by the Department of Community Medicine, Bhopal from 9th May to 30th June 2020. Results: Out of 426 COVID positive patients, 54.93% were asymptomatic and 45.07% symptomatic. Fever was the most common presentation reported by the COVID positive patients. Mean incubation period was 4.68 ±2.63 days. Contact with COVID-19 positive cases was major source of infection identified. Only 9.86% patients had co-morbidity. Out of 10512 contacts traced, 66.65% i.e., 6902 samples were collected. Overall Positivity rate was found to be 4.30%. The positivity of the advanced contact tracing is 2.42%. Conclusion: Contact tracing is a highly effective and robust strategy if given sufficient resources.