New Delhi, Jun 25 (PTI) A mega exercise to screen the national capital's population for COVID-19 began on Thursday, with teams of accredited social health activists (ASHA) and auxiliary nurse midwives armed with a mobile application fanning out across the city.

The process of door-to-door screening, which has to be completed by July 6, started with Civil Lines, Chandrawal and other areas in Central Delhi.

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In Central Delhi district, a two-member team comprising an ASHA/Anganwadi worker and an ANM (auxiliary nurse midwife) has been given the task to conduct house-to-house survey, a senior official of the administration said.

Apart from basic details like name, age, address and contact, the teams are feeding the 'SS Corona' app with information such as every individual's travel history, whether or not they use the Aarogya Setu app, and if they have symptoms of flu.

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The official said the same mobile application was being used in carrying out screening at containment zones in the national capital.

"We hope that we will complete the task by July 6. Whatever information we collect is being sent to a dedicated portal through the app," another official said.

Asked whether they are also conducting thermal scanning of every family in the city, he said, "This is a trust-based exercise. We cannot force somebody to go under the test. We only update information based on reply to our questionnaire. We conduct rapid antigen test on those who have COVID-19 like symptoms."

According to a revised COVID-19 response plan issued by the Delhi government, the house-to-house screening will be completed by June 30 in containment zones and the deadline for the rest of Delhi is July 6.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)