9,400 cases in 28 days, Haryana to toughen prevention tactics
CHANDIGARH: With the virus spreading faster than ever, Haryana government is looking at ways to make containment measures more effective and stringent, particularly in the three NCR districts of Gurugram, Faridabad and Sonepat.
The state has seen a steep hike in number of Covid cases in the past 28 days, reporting 9,451 infections from May 25 to June 21. More than 70% of the active cases pertain to the said three districts.
Top officials said as a part of the intensive efforts to control the virus spread, the Standard Q Covid-19 antigen detection test, recommended by ICMR, will be done in those containment zones which have thrown up higher number of cases. The antigen test is a promising tool for quick diagnosis of Covid-19 infection and is different from the rapid antibody test. “Containment zones having 50 cases/sq km will definitely qualify for the antigen detection test. The test can be done on site and results are available in about 30 minutes,” an official revealed.
“Intensive door-to-door surveillance, antigen detection test, stricter containment, including isolating people who are not Covid-19 positive but have to go out of the zone for work, are among a few measures we are pondering over,” the official added.
The district administrations are in the process of identifying hotspots in the containment zones. The government will make an announcement two to three days before commencing the intensive antigen detection tests in various containment zones.
“For instance, Sonepat has 275 containment zones, Faridabad has 145 and Gurugram has 98. We have realised that all these zones would not qualify as hotspots. So, there is a need to review them as well,” the official said.
The ICMR has recommended
that the antigen detection test, performed onsite, should be done under strict medical supervision. All symptomatic influenza-like illness cases and asymptomatic direct and high-risk contacts with comorbidities of a confirmed case should be tested once between Day 5 and Day 10 of coming into contact. As per ICMR, a +ve antigen detection test should be considered as a true positive whereas all symptomatic individuals testing negative through the rapid antigen test should be confirmed with a real-time PCR test.