India’s testing strategy effective, better than others, says Centre

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 16

Insisting that limited testing strategy was working with 325 districts not reporting any Covid case so far and 27 districts in 17 states managing to remain free of new infections for 14 days, the Health Ministry said India had been testing on an average 27 symptomatic persons to get one Covid positive case.

“This number is much lower for other countries. While we are testing 24 people to get one positive case, Japan is testing 11.5, Italy 6.7, the US 5.3 and the UK 3.4. The test criteria we are following are the same that are followed by other countries. It is not correct to assume that we are offering the tests to lesser number of people,” ICMR chief epidemiologist Raman Gangakhedkar said as the country’s Covid case load soared to 12,759 and death toll mounted to 420 on Thursday with an additional 1,320 cases and 43 deaths over a single day.

“Due to advance efforts, we have managed to contain the infection to some measure. Our field actions have ensured that many districts that were previously reporting cases are now free of new cases. There are 325 districts with no Covid case. Mahe in Puducherry has not seen any new case for 28 days and 27 districts in 17 states have been free of new infection for 14 days now,” Health Ministry spokesperson Lav Agarwal said.

Among these 27 districts are Punjab’s SBS Nagar, Haryana’s Panipat, J&K’s Rajouri and Uttarakhand’s Pauri Garhwal. On the testing front, the ICMR today said if its 176 labs worked on a daily shift of eight hours, they could test as many as 42,418 samples a day and with double shift of eight hours each, this capacity could be augmented to 78,227 daily. In another important development today, India received five lakh rapid antibody test kits from two Chinese firms – Wondfo and Livzhon.

The ICMR however clarified today that these kits are not meant for diagnosis and testing of Covid as these only detect antibodies to the virus. “These kits are meant only for surveillance of trends in disease hotspots and will help us find out if the infection is rising or decreasing. These rapid test kits for antibody tests are not meant for early diagnosis of the disease,” Gangakhedkar said, adding that the errors in the performance of the kits, as have been seen in some tests, would not matter because the kits are not being used to test people. “In the longer term over which we will use the antibody kits, errors will not hold,” the ICMR clarified.

India is currently testing the following people for Covid: symptomatic recent travellers to Covid-affected nations; symptomatic contacts of lab confirmed cases; symptomatic health workers; all severe pneumonia and influenza-like cases in designated hotspots; and asymptomatic high-risk cases at the fifth and 14th day of history of contact to a confirmed case.

Genome sequence established

Gandhinagar: The Gujarat Biotechnology Research Centre claims to have established the entire genome sequence of coronavirus. This, it says, will help find a cure for the pandemic. Director Chaitanya Joshi said they collected 100 virus samples from different parts of the state. The findings, establishing the origin and peculiarities of the virus, would help the pharma industry find the drug that was effective against the virus, he said. TNS

Pizza delivery boy +ve

New Delhi: Seventy-two families in a south Delhi locality have been told to observe self-quarantine after a delivery boy associated with a famous pizza chain tested positive for Covid-19.

Europe toll tops 90,000

Paris: Covid-19 has killed more than 90,000 people in Europe, over 65 per cent of the overall global death toll.

Covid-19 Cases india

Count 12,759
Recovered 1,514
Deaths 420

World

Total 21,18,894
Recovered 5,35,352
Deaths 1,41,922

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