Doctors from AIIMS, Delhi, review Covid-19 situation in Gurugram

The director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, visited the city to review the Covid-19 situation in view of the continuous spike in

The director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, visited the city to review the Covid-19 situation in view of the continuous spike in cases for almost a month. Daily cases continued to hover near the 1,000 mark with the district on Tuesday reporting 822 new infections, taking the Covid-19 tally to 45,894 and active cases to over 6,000 for the second time this month.

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Dr Randeep Guleria, director, AIIMS, Delhi, asked the district health department to conduct targeted and saturation testing, where everyone gets tested, in worst-affected clusters. According to the district health department, Guleria, who was assisted by two other doctors, also advised that the workforce for contact tracing and monitoring home isolation be increased to flatten the curve.

The active cases in Gurugram stand at 6,085. Cases are showing an uptick with a weekly test positivity rate of 16%, with daily infections fluctuating between 500-970. Considering the high positivity rate, doctors from AIIMS, who held a meeting with health officials at the chief medical officer’s (CMO) premises at old Civil Hospital, called for saturation testing in Covid-19 clusters.

The Central government has already issued an advisory to states to conduct saturation testing in high-risk areas. Testing can be repeated periodically until the positivity rates of the high-risk areas decline. “In the worst-affected Covid-19 areas, the target is to increase the intensity of saturation testing, where everyone gets tested,” said Dr Virender Yadav, CMO, adding they have been doing periodical testing in some areas to lower the positivity rate.

The health department has been conducting almost 6,000 tests for the last six days. On Tuesday, 6,264 tests were administered, including 4,688 Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) ones and 1,576 rapid antigen tests.

Yadav said that the district health department has also been doing targeted testing. “Gurugram is currently doing maximum tests in Haryana. Over three lakh tests per million population have been conducted till now. At least 1,650 testing camps have been conducted. We are also trying aggressively to screen and test asymptomatic people identified through contact tracing exercise to limit the chain of transmission,” he said.

HT reported earlier this week that contact tracing has become a challenging task due to the surge in cases. For every positive case, the teams are able to identify over four contacts, which is fewer than the recommendation of 10 contacts, as the health department is facing a shortage of personnel.

“The issue has been put across to the state health department, to depute additional workforce for ideal contact tracing. Also, as nearly 93% of active cases are home isolated, their timely surveillance every alternate day is equally crucial. Therefore, we have also asked for more people who can join the home isolation teams,” said Yadav, adding that they have also been told to ensure strict quarantine of close contacts of positive persons.

According to Yadav, the AIIMS team emphasized strict enforcement in containment zones and mask discipline in crowded places.