District gears up for massive testing drive, focus will be on providing timely results, says CMO

Gurugram district administration stares at the mammoth task of conducting at least 10,000 tests this Saturday — as part of a mass testing drive for Covid-19 — with

Gurugram district administration stares at the mammoth task of conducting at least 10,000 tests this Saturday — as part of a mass testing drive for Covid-19 — with officials anxiously waiting to take on the challenge of having to deliver the result of all such tests in 48 hours in order for the drive to be effective.

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The drive, officials said, was aimed at timely identification of suspected cases, which in turn would help in flattening the new infection curve.

As per the district health bulletin, with 698 new infection reported on Friday, the count of active cases reached an all-time high of 6,463. The addition of four new deaths also took the Covid-19 toll to 278. Of the active cases, 455 are admitted in hospitals, while 5,996 are home isolated. The total tally of Covid-19 cases by Friday had touched 47,951, beyond the state projection of 43,000 for November.

Considering this unprecedented surge in number of cases and to break the transmission chain, the district health department has decided to hold a mass testing drive on Saturday. The department will target high-risk areas — with test positivity rates between six and 10 percent, such as Patel Nagar, Laxman Vihar, Om Nagar, Feroze Gandhi colony and Gandhi Nagar. It will also cover Sadar market and wholesale market in Khandsa. The department will also hold camps in the community centre in these areas where everyone can get tested. Camps will also be held at 33 Urban Primary Health Centres (UPHC) and PHCs in rural areas.

Following the state health department’s directive, the department will administer 80% tests through gold frontline Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR), while the remaining will be through rapid antigen tests. RT-PCR test results are to be delivered in 24-48 hours. Timely test results play a critical role if excessive volume of samples are collected in a day.

Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer of the district, held a meeting on Friday with private diagnostic labs that would run the tests for samples beyond the capacity of the government lab.

“Almost 2000 RT-PCR tests can be run at the government lab if machines are operational 24x7. We have decided to run two RT-PCR machines 24x7, for the next two days for testing 4,000 samples, while the remaining 6000 or more samples will be given to four labs, who have signed MoUs with the state health department on testing the samples at Rs 900 each,” said Yadav. The government lab in Civil Hospital, sector 10 will be running tests 24x7 on Saturday and Sunday to deliver timely test results, added Yadav.

The big private labs, on the other hand, have also made strategic changes to handle the volume of samples coming from Gurugram and other districts. Dr Rishabh Rajput, director -Covid-19 lab, Modern Diagnostics, said that they are expecting more than 10,000 samples from Gurugram and other districts. “The teams have been told to work in double shifts for the next two days. We already have a staff of 150 people. Lab technicians will be incentivised for double shifts. Additional manpower has also been outsourced to assist in testing and making entries of positive cases in the Indian Council of Medical Research portal. The target is to give test results in 48 hours,” said Rajput.