To arrest rising Covid toll, govt plans to expand rapid testing
NEWDELHI:India is scaling up diagnosis using rapid tests across the country to track, trace and treat all cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) to contain its spread and bring down the number of deaths, as the number of fatalities caused by the virus in the past 24 hours on Wednesday crossed 2,000 nationally.
The government’s focus so far has been on keeping the death rate down, but with the surge in numbers, it is exploring all possible alternatives to track every single infected person in the country, and re-strategising disease management to ensure no serious patient is left untreated.
For testing, the antigen-based rapid test recommended by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) will be expanded in a big way across the states with a high disease burden, especially in containment zones and hotspots and hospitals.
In a letter to health secretary Preeti Sudan on Sunday, Dr Balram Bhargava, director general of the ICMR said, “…Testing remains a cornerstone in our fight against Covid-19, and therefore ramping up testing is essentially critical to track, trace, and treat all cases of Covid-19. Since the gold standard RT-PCR test has essential requirements in terms of biosafety and biosecurity as well as specialized equipment, ICMR had been exploring alternate quick and reliable options for diagnosis of Covid-19.”
The antigen-based testing will begin with Delhi.
“To prevent the disease spread, aggressive testing is the only solution. All states will have to strictly enhance their testing capacity as more you test, the more number of people you will be able to treat in time. Not everyone needs hospitalization but we must be able to identify those who do to save lives. Testing is the only way. The states have been advised to take up antigen based testing as it will be able to cover a large population in a short span of time that will give us quick results and modify strategies accordingly,” said an ICMR official, who did not want to be identified.
Community engagement is another key area that the government is focusing on to avoid people stigmatizing people suspecting either to have been infected by Covid-19 or have recovered from it.
The ministry of health has drafted an elaborate awareness campaign material to be circulated within the community to educate people. The document highlights the issue of stigma being the one of the reasons why many people conceal symptoms, and don’t seek medical care, thus reporting late to hospital.
“To some extent late reporting to hospital of Covid patients due to stigma attached is still a concern, and one of the reasons for patients turning serious,” says, Dr Randeep Guleria, director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.
“Community engagement to ensure people don’t face stigma in society that will be the ultimate key to help people come forward and report symptoms. And people who interact with the public, making door-to-door visits need to adequately trained to communicate the message well. It’s important for these people to connect with the masses well only then the mind-set will change,” said Dr Jugal Kishore, head, community medicine department, Safdarjung Hospital.
Another focus area is to enhance the health infrastructure across the country in terms of beds, especially Intensive Care Unit beds with oxygen support for serious patients, to treat all those serious enough to require hospital care.