Breakthrough infections not as high as Centre says: Kerala

The state health department said while the Union health ministry quoted 40,000 breakthrough infections in Kerala, its rough estimate, it would be between 5,000-6,000 cases

The Kerala health department has started a study on rampant breakthrough infections, and re-infections in the state even as it rejected the Centre’s numbers on breakthrough cases in the state. Breakthrough is when a fully vaccinated person gets infected again and re-infection refers to a completely recovered individual getting infected again with the virus.

Gokul M G, a male nursing officer, who was infected twice even after two doses. (Vivek Nair)

The state health department said while the Union health ministry quoted 40,000 breakthrough infections in Kerala, its rough estimate, it would be between 5,000-6,000 cases.

“We have no idea about 40,000 cases as mentioned by the Union health ministry. Our estimate is less than 0.1% that means around 5000-5500 breakthrough cases,” said a senior health official who did not want to be named. The Union health ministry said the country had reported over 100,000 breakthrough cases of which Kerala’s share was 40,000. Later, a Central team visiting the state earlier this month also confirmed high incidences of breakthrough cases in Kerala. They said Pathanamthitta district alone reported more than 7,000 breakthrough cases.

But district medical officer Dr AL Sheeja refuted these statistics. “Only 258 such cases were reported in the district. I have no idea how they got such large numbers,” she said. Earlier, health minister Veena George, hailing from the same district, also denied a spike in breakthrough infections in Pathanamthitta.

The health department has sent samples of all breakthrough infections for genome sequencing to rule out the possibility of a new variant. Though experts suspected a new variant behind steady rise of cases in the state the Indian Council of Medical Research is yet to confirm it. For almost two months, the state has been reporting more than half the national caseload.

On Wednesday, it reported 23,500 cases with a test positivity rate of 14.49% when 162,130 samples were tested, said the state health ministry. It also reported 116 deaths, taking total fatalities to 18,120. Test positivity rate is the number of tests returning positive out of total tests done for a particular infection.

Among breakthrough infections, health workers form a large chunk. Twenty-four-year-old nursing officer Gokul MG, who works with a medical college hospital in Thiruvananthpauram, was down with Covid-19 twice, first in August and second in November.

He continues to work without a break, and has got his two vaccine jabs. He says,“How can I rest when people need me the most.” Like him, there are many health workers who were infected more than twice. Now the health department has asked all workers who come in contact with patients to undergo regular antigen or RT-PCR tests.

The Central team which visited the eight worst-affected districts found that high density of population, prevalence of highly-infectious Delta virus and laxity in home quarantine are main reasons for high caseload.