E-Paper
Expert panel suggests Covid-19 testing at offices with two or more infections
All positives will be closely followed up, and symptomatic negatives made to undergo the confirmatory test.
With the resumption of economic activities, a team of experts has recommended saturation testing of employees, especially in industrial areas, where two or more people have tested positive for coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
“With gradual opening up of offices and economic activities the workplaces are becoming hot spots and infection and reaching from workplaces up to the families,” according to the revised Covid-19 control strategy drafted by a team of experts from the National Centre for Disease Control, in collaboration with New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences, ICMR, and Niti Aayog.
“All workplace contacts in offices/ workplaces being run in closed setting, to be enlisted and districts should keep a database of positive cases reported from workplace. In cases where workplace / offices fall in different districts proper arrangements need to be worked out,” read the document.
All positives will be closely followed up, and symptomatic negatives made to undergo the confirmatory test. Asymptomatic negatives will also be monitored for symptoms, of which those who show symptoms will be tested, as per the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines for testing.
The revised strategy advises on-priority identification of workplace clusters where everyone will be screened for Covid-19 after risk assessment in all the districts, and 100% first time testing, or saturation testing, to be done using a rapid antigen test (RAT) only.
