Rapid response and mitigation measures in control of COVID-19 cases in an industrial warehouse of Western Maharashtra, India

Introduction: From being declared as Public Health Emergency of International Concern and the transmission dynamics of COVID-19, outbreak control has been the cornerstone of combating COVID-19 cases within communities and clusters. An outbreak investigation of COVID-19 positive cases was conducted in a close community setting at an industrial warehouse which included working and residential areas in the premises, with the aim to break the chain of transmission rapidly and to formulate preventive strategy for dealing with other outbreaks in a community setting. Materials and Methods: This was a study where a rapid outbreak response was carried out after two individuals tested COVID-19 positive. Following the national and local guidelines, immediate decongestion followed by aggressive contact tracing, testing and isolating the cases were done. Results: After the rapid contact tracing exercise, contacts were identified, quarantined and tested. Daily monitoring of the contacts revealed six symptomatic confirmed cases and on testing, 19 asymptomatic contacts were positive. All confirmed cases were immediately admitted to the hospital. Additional two positive cases reported from family contacts. The mean age of the individuals was 46 years. There were 9 individuals with co-morbidities and two individuals developed acute respiratory distress syndrome and expired in the hospital. The secondary attack rate was calculated to be 17.51%. Conclusion: Prompt public health measures by rapid response team, creation of containment zone, contact tracing, early isolation along with daily influenza like illness screening and strict quarantine effectively helped in containment of the outbreak in the population under study.

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC-SA

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