E-Paper
132 test Covid-19 positive, poor case reporting in past adding to figures: Health dept
Gurugram:
Gurugram:
The district on Tuesday registered 132 new Covid-19 cases, the second highest single-day spike in a week. The total count of persons infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus has reached 1,195. Of these, 903 are active cases, health department officials said.
The previous highest spike was reported on Tuesday when 160 new cases were confirmed.
On Wednesday, four people were discharged, while the death toll stood at four, according to the state health bulletin. Official data shows that the district, which accounts for about 40% of Haryana’s total tally of 2,954 cases, has the highest Covid-19 burden in the state till now.
The sudden spike in coronavirus cases in Gurugram started from May 28 when 68 cases were reported, taking the total count to 407. In the following six days, 790 cases were added, which has been the highest increase in a week till now.
DATA INACCURACY
The state and district health officials initially claimed that the sudden spike in positive cases was due to ease in lockdown, leading to intermingling of infected and non-infected persons. On Tuesday, however, they raised the issue of data inaccuracy, with state home minister Anil Vij writing a letter to Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan.
Vij in his letter said that the labs in Delhi, which are taking Covid-19 samples of Haryana residents, are not sharing reports properly with the authorities concerned, resulting in delay of contact tracing and surveillance activities, besides creating mismatch on website of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and state portal.
At least nine to 10 labs in Delhi have taken samples of Gurugram residents, the officials said. On May 31, the Director General Health Services (DGHS), Haryana, issued notices to 18 private labs of Delhi, approved by ICMR for doing Covid-19 testing in the national capital, for taking samples of Haryana patients without keeping the Haryana health department in the loop.
Rajeev Arora, additional chief secretary, health department, said, “These labs were not conveying results to concerned district health authorities. In many cases, incomplete or wrong addresses or incorrect contact details were shared, which has a direct consequences on the surveillance activities. We have strongly taken up the issue of data inaccuracies.”
The district health department also confirmed that at least 300 new cases reported last week are mostly the backlog cases which have been uploaded by the private labs in the last few days.
Dr Jaswant Singh Punia, chief medical officer, said, “Most of the private labs were doing incomplete entries in the portal or putting incomplete addresses. There are at least nine to 10 labs in Delhi which have taken samples of Gurugram residents and have not shared the test results timely. Now, they are putting up the data, which is adding up to the overall figure.”
The state health department accepted that the delay in sharing test results has impacted contact tracing and surveillance.
