MUMBAI: As coronavirus infections climb in Mumbai,
authorities in India's worst-hit city are turning to high-tech "smart
helmets" to speed up screenings and identify suspected cases in the
financial capital's densely-populated slums.
The
portable thermoscanners - previously deployed in Dubai, Italy and China
- enable health workers to record the temperatures of dozens of residents
per minute and could emerge as a key weapon in Mumbai's quest to eradicate the
virus from the city of 18 million.
"Traditional
screening methods take a lot of time. You go to a slum with 20,000 people and
it takes you three hours to screen 300 people," said Neelu Jain, a medical
volunteer affiliated with the non-profit group Bharatiya Jain Sanghatana.
"But
when you use these helmets, all you have to do is ask people to come out of
their homes, face them and you can screen 6,000 people in two-and-a-half
hours," she told AFP.
The helmets were donated to authorities in Mumbai and the nearby
city of Pune, which have both been locked in a months-long battle against the
pandemic, with cases across India soaring past one million on Friday.
But with just two helmets in use in each city, the push to
identify and isolate infected residents will take a long time.
The imported helmets - which cost around 600,000 rupees
(US$8,045) - are also in high demand in places like Dubai, said Jain,
making it very difficult to expand capacity.
Source: AFP/ec
0 Comments