People from non-essential services departments of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation were deployed on Thursday for each of the 16 boroughs in Calcutta to make up for staff-shortage in conducting door-to-door surveillance.

The civic body has launched the drive to seek out silent carriers of Covid-19.

Officials from non-essential services departments like amusement or tax collection have been deployed to work in surveillance teams.

While the honorary health workers will go on door-to-door visits, officials from the non-essential services departments will call back residents once every two or three days to find out if they have developed any symptoms of Covid-19.

“There are some wards where covering the entire area will take about 18-20 days. Since the incubation period for Covid-19 is considered to be 14 days, a person can develop symptoms during that period and we might fail to spot it,” a CMC official said.

“Now that we have a team of people who would call residents whose homes have been visited, the surveillance would be stronger. The chances of missing someone who has developed symptoms get minimised because our people would call them. But we cannot do anything if someone hides that he/she has developed Covid-19 symptoms,” the official said.

Mayor Firhad Hakim held a meeting with health department officials at the civic headquarters on Thursday, after which teams were formed. The teams will work together with the borough executive health official.

Metro had on April 9 reported that the Calcutta Municipal Corporation was going to start door-to-door surveillance in all wards. CMC officials had then spoken of the challenge of covering so many homes with staff-shortage.

The 2011 Census pegged the population of Calcutta at close to 4.5 million. The civic body’s health department has around 600 honorary health workers who are trained to collect data and note down replies to a set of questions.

Another 1,400 are engaged in work related to information, education and communication on various diseases.

The teams formed on Thursday will be doing what a set of CMC personnel has been doing for some time.

Some CMC personnel has been engaged in the task of speaking to people who had arrived from countries hit by the novel coronavirus every day or in two-three days’ interval to check on their health status and to find out if they have developed any symptoms of Covid-19.

The moment someone speaks about some symptoms, they are advised to visit a hospital and seek medical opinion. Their report is sent to the state health department for further tracking and ensuring he/she seeks a doctor’s opinion.

The net of surveillance has now been extended to people arriving from any country and from other states in the country.

Public health experts have said that tracing, tracking and isolating potential Covid-19 people is an essential strategy in containing the spread of the disease.