Four children among 20 new cases, Rajasthan tally at 363 Rapid testing to begin in state from April 12
PLAN Cluster testing strategy for Ramganj, says health minister
JAIPUR: With 20 new Covid-19 cases reported in Rajasthan, among them 4 children, the total count in the state has risen to 363.
Health minister Raghu Sharma said a special strategy has been formulated for Ramganj which is a Covid-19 hotspot.
He said the area has been divided into clusters based on the population census. Samples will be taken from each cluster daily and testing will be done to estimate the number of corona positive cases and formulate the strategy accordingly.
Rohit Kumar Singh, additional chief secretary, health department, said 12 new cases were reported from Jaipur.
A 4-year-old girl was among three female cases from Jaipur and all three were contacts of previously positive cases, he said. Two of the cases were from Ghat Gate and one from Ramganj, the Covid-19 hotspot.
Four of the cases were of Tablighi Jamaat members while a 62-year-old male from Bhatta Basti also tested positive. The man, an employee of NBC in Hasanpura area, has not given any travel or contact history, said Singh. He had symptoms of the virus f or 4- 5 days and was referred from Kanwatiya hospital to SMS hospital.
Four other men admitted in Mohammadia hospital in Surajpol were found infected with the Sars-cov2 virus.
Five cases were reported from
Bikaner, two of them male and three females aged 6 years, 11 years and 12 years, said Singh. They are all contacts of the lady who was positive and died on Saturday, said Singh.
One case of a woman, who is a close contact of an infected patient, was reported from Jodhpur while another woman who was a contact of a previously positive case tested positive in Banswara. In Bikaner, a 21-year-old man who is a contact of a Tablighi Jamaati tested positive, said Singh.
Health minister Sharma said while the cases have risen to 363, it is a matter of satisfaction that 45 people in the state have recovered and 42 have been discharged.
He said the focus is on screening of the population and health workers have so far screened 5.5 crore people in the state. “Where positive cases are found, the areas are being sealed and curfew imposed and contact tracing is being done. Containment plans are being made within 1 km, 3 km and 5 km areas where intensive testing is being done.”
He said in Rajasthan the average casualty rate is 2 per cent which is lower than the national average.
In Ramganj, he said, experts have suggested that clusters be formed based on the population census and sampling done. It has been divided into 30 clusters and 21 samples will be taken from each cluster and PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test will be done. Initially 630 samples will be taken and if situation is found to be grave, then more samples will be taken. Intensive door-to-door screening is already underway in Ramganj, he said.
Sharma said curfew has been imposed in areas where more cases are being found and testing facility is being extended to all district headquarters and intensive sampling should be done.
The break-up of the 363 positive cases is as follows – total positive cases in the state are 325, while two Italian nationals had earlier tested positive. So far, 36 evacuees from Iran, who are housed in the Army Wellness Centre in Jodhpur, have been infected with the Sars-cov2 virus.
JAIPUR: Rapid antibody testing is likely to start in Rajasthan from Sunday after the first lot of kits is delivered on April 11. Rajasthan issued orders to four vendors on Tuesday for supply of 200,000 kits each, said Rohit Kumar Singh, additional chief secretary of medical and health department, on Wednesday.
In an exclusive interview to Hindustan Times, he said: “Our orders went yesterday [March 7] and for the speed of delivery, we have given orders for 2 lakh kits each to four vendors approved by the ICMR [Indian Council of Medical Research]. The delivery schedule starts from April 11.”
The ICMR released an advisory on April 4 about how and where rapid test kits can be used, according to which people in high-risk areas (containment zones), “large migration gatherings” and evacuation centres are expected to be the first to get undergo this simple blood test that checks the presence of antibodies created by the body to fight the Sars-cov-2 virus.
Unlike the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test that detects the virus’s genetic material (RNA) in throat and nasal swabs to diagnose a current Covid-19 infection, rapid antibody test is a blood test for which sample can be collected by just a finger prick and takes 15-20 minutes to give results. It identifies people who were infected at least a week before the test, and also those who were infected but never diagnosed, helping map undetected infections and giving the correct extent of the spread of the disease.
Singh said the state government was also ramping up PCR testing, especially in Ramganj, which is the hot spot of Covid-19 infections in Rajasthan. “We will collect around 500 samples from different clusters in Ramganj for testing from today [April 8]. Until yesterday, we were testing 90-100 samples so this is a 5x increase in testing,” he said.
The ACS said that PCR testing will also begin in Hasanpur and Jalupura “where probably the cases are but we don’t know”. “People in these localities socialize with people from Ramganj so we are extending the testing to these areas,” he said.
By Wednesday evening, Rajasthan had tested 17,638 samples, out of which 363 are positive and 16,401 negative; 874 samples were under process.
Singh said even in Bhilwara, which is being lauded nationally for its ‘ruthless containment’ model, the department will do more testing. “We want to be sure that there are no cases. We cannot take chances,” he said.