Test positivity rate at 5-week low in Ghaziabad, experts say peak almost over

Ghaziabad: The weekly average test positivity rate (TPR) in the district, which started rising from mid of April, has come down to five-week low at 5

Ghaziabad: The weekly average test positivity rate (TPR) in the district, which started rising from mid of April, has come down to five-week low at 5.37% during May 13-19, indicating that Covid-19 cases have started to decline.

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According to an analysis of the health department records for five weeks from April 15 to May 19, average TPR started with 7.34% in the week April 15 to 21 (6,212 average tests yielding 456 positive cases) and fell to 5.37% in the last week (6,754 tests giving 363 cases). The World Health Organization (WHO) states that the positivity rate needs to come down below 5% for the outbreak to be considered under control.

During the five weeks, the average TPR had increased to 13.04% (730 cases out of 5,598 tests) from April 22-28. It further peaked to a new high of 40.73% during April 29 to May 5 when 2,660 tests gave 1,083 positive cases.

The test positivity rate is the ratio of positive cases resulting out of tests conducted in a day. The district was given a daily target to conduct 1,700 RT-PCR tests and 3,500 tests through rapid kits. On May 11, the target was revised by the government to 2,900 RT-PCR tests and 5,250 rapid antigen tests. The district implemented the order from May 16.

District magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey said that the distribution of medicine kits has proved a great help in early treatment. “We have been largely able to control the spread of infection which was high from mid of April to first week of May. The number of cases is on a decline. Now, we are focussing on testing in rural areas. We have 161 gram panchayats, and we have given two days to our officials to open up 140 health sub-centres where testing will start,” he said.

Pandey said that once the sub-centres start, the focus will be initially to screen suspected cases with rapid antigen kits and later RT-PCR tests will also be conducted. “The Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) workers will be trained for the purpose of testing, and we are also hiring more lab technicians. The sub-centres will be monitored by the primary health centres of the area,” he added.

Experts said that though the cases seem to be declining, examining further two weeks would indicate whether the situation is of a decline or a plateau.

“The peak seems to be over. The overall figures indicate that we are either at a plateau situation or there is a decline. At present, only a few positive cases are coming in, but a high number of patients are still in ICU or on ventilators due to severity of infection. So, we need to examine situation for another two weeks to safely say that there is a decline,” said Dr VB Jindal, former president of Indian Medical Association (Ghaziabad).

Augmentation of oxygen capacity

The DM said that the district has decided to augment the capacity of the oxygen plant at Bhojpur and also to open a new plant at Modinagar.

“The augmentation of the existing plant will be over two acres of land for which we have received a proposal. Also, there is a proposal for a new plant at Modinagar. Work for the other nine new plants is in progress and will be completed shortly. We have also asked the hospitals having more than 50 beds to install oxygen plants. All these measures will give a major boost to oxygen capacity in Ghaziabad,” he said.