nagpur the nagpur municipal corporations nmc move to trace citizens with travel history to the united kingdom uk middle east and south africa may prove to be a futile exercise just like in the case of domestic travellers feel doctors nmc has appealed to citizens foreign travel agents and foreign currency exchangers to disclose details of persons who have travelled to these countries in last one month doctors said one month is a very big span and many foreign returnees may have already recovered from the infection if they had it instead they said the staffcrunched civic body must focus on vaccination which will ultimately help contain the infection and protect citizensseven star hospital covid team incharge dr mohan nerker said retrospective tracing will only tell that the mutant coronavirus has reached here but there is nothing more the government can do about it there is very less chance of the new strain causing any major problem for us i dont think it is practical after so many days to trace each and every person who has returned he saidhaving treated over 1000 mild moderate and severe covid patients dr nerker said we havent noticed any change in type of patients coming in we are still receiving moderate and severe cases but there is nothing unusual about them he saiddr nerker also said unless the flyers are symptomatic it cant be said whether a foreign returned person spread the infection in city he suggested that vaccination should be streamlined which will protect citizensseveral vaccines have shown effective results and are likely to get emergency use authorization by next month we must focus on how such large population shall be immunized against the virus he saidinfectious disease specialist dr nitin shinde said there are two aspects to the issue going back last one month can be right only if the civic body wants to send their samples for genomic sequencing this is one scientific reason for epidemiological surveillance or research in case they want to catch active infection then it is of no use maximum incubation period is of 14 days he saiddr shinde added many virologists across the world agree that it is not a significant concern it is natural for a virus to mutate unless there is a significant mutation which increases mortality we need not worry senior pulmonologist dr ashok arbat asked what will nmc do by going after such a large number of travellers many may have already tested positive and recovered will they be put in quarantine now he said