The importance of contact tracing is being acknowledged across the world in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many aspects of which are yet to be understood.
About Contact Tracing
Contact tracing is the process by which health workers identify, assess and manage people who had been exposed to an infectious agent. This is done to identify potential infection cases, transmitters and carriers and also to prevent transmission on a larger scale.
Steps Involved
There are 3 steps in contact tracing:
- Contact Identification: the contacts of the infected patient are identified.
- Contact Listing: the identified contacts are listed and informed about their potential infection.
- Contact Follow-up: regular follow-up to look for signs of infection in the contacts.
Contacts
Contacts can be family, visitors, health workers, room-mates, school-mates, colleagues, partners and others with close physical contacts.
Contact Tracing by Health Worker
The health worker visits the contact in the first 48 hours of exposure. The identified contact is monitored for 2 to 8 days. Details like demographic data, date of exposure, etc. are collected. The date of symptoms’ onset (if infected) is also collected by the workers.