The Government of Karnataka has launched India’s first city-wide environmental monitoring site in Bangalore under the name ‘Precision Health Platform’.
It is a city-wide sewage monitoring system that helps authorities monitor COVID-19 at an early stage and make arrangements to deal with it. This site is the first site in Asia.
*Sewage from sewage and non-sewage water will be tested to identify clusters of new infections (even among asymptomatic individuals) and to measure antimicrobial resistance in the population.
*Based on the analysis of the test results, a panel of technical experts will provide inputs to policy classifiers for targeted COVID-19 prevention, maintenance and management services.
*The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Scal Foundation and the Govt Action Coalition (CAC – COVIDAction Collab) will be involved in this effort jointly with the Government of Karnataka.
*The Accurate Public Health Monitoring Approach was developed by COVIDActionCollab in collaboration with more than 300 organizations to provide COVID-19 relief and recovery services to vulnerable communities in India.
*Bangalore joins countries like the Netherlands, Finland and Israel with similar surveillance systems.
*75% of Bangalore’s 9 million population generate 90 data points per week by signaling the growing COVID-19 clusters or signaling the exit of the COVID-19 cluster from one area to another.
*CAC will assist the Government of Karnataka in collecting sewage samples for cleaners and laboratory technicians and taking them to laboratories for testing.