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Telangana tests only 225 samples daily; Andhra 9,000
This came to light on Sunday night when the Telangana medical and health department officials disclosed the data analytics of testing as on May 16 to explain the gender and age distribution among the positive cases for Covid-19.
At a time when Andhra Pradesh has been conducting an average of 9,000 tests for Covid-19 every day, the number of samples being tested in the neighbouring Telugu state of Telangana has been only an average of 225 samples a day. Telengana tests 664 per million while the country tests 1660 per million.
This came to light on Sunday night when the Telangana medical and health department officials disclosed the data analytics of testing as on May 16 to explain the gender and age distribution among the positive cases for Covid-19.
According to G Srinivasa Rao, director of medical and health, Telangana government, the cumulative number of samples tested as on May 16 was 23,388, including that of 947 male positive, 14,256 male negative, 566 female positive and 7619 female negative cases.
Among the positive cases, both male and female, 218 cases belong to the age group of 0-15 years, 434 are from the age group of 16-30 years, 406 are from age group of 31-45 years, 301 cases are from the age group of 46-60 and 151 cases are of above 60 years of age.
The last time the department released the figures of cumulative number of tests done in the state was on April 28, when the health minister addressed a press conference and disclosed that 19,303 tests were conducted till that date.
Taking into account the latest figures of 23,388 samples tested, the total number of tests conducted between April 28 and May 16 was 4085 – an average of 226 cases per day.
A statement from the office of Telangana health minister Eatala Rajender said the total number of tests conducted in the state as on May 14 was 22,842. It does mean 546 tests were done in a span of 48 hours – an average of 273 per day, showing that the testing has slightly improved in the last three days.
The first Covid-19 cases was reported in Telangana on March 2 and it was only after March 15 that the government released figures about the number of samples tested – 22 samples on March 15 and 764 on March 24, when Tablighi Jamaat episode pushed the number up. After that the Telangana government stopped releasing the data pertaining to number of samples tested for Covid-19.
The health minister has been refusing to divulge the data stating that the number of positive cases that were detected in the testing, rather than the number of samples being tested, was a parameter for the spread of the virus.
As on Sunday evening, 1551 positive cases and 34 deaths were reported in Telangana; of them, 525 cases are still active and others have recovered.
“We do not want to do indiscriminate testing of people just for the sake of figures. We have been conducting tests as per the ICMR guidelines only on those having genuine symptoms and also with comorbid conditions, apart from those who had been the primary contacts of the positive cases,” Rajender said.
He further said thought there are private labs that have got permission from ICMR to conduct the tests for Covid-19, the state government did not give the clearance because it would lead to these labs fleecing people even if they had mild symptoms. “Each test costs around Rs 5,000 and we do not want the people to be fleeced,” he said.
In Andhra Pradesh, however, the testing of samples for Covid-19 has been stepped up in the last one month, after the state health department began using Trunat rapid testing kits, besides RT-PCR testing. The AP government has also imported two lakh rapid test kits from South Korea, which are also being used for random testing during the door-to-door survey.
According to state nodal officer for Covid-19, Arja Sreekanth, 2,48,711 samples have been tested as on Monday. In all, the state reported 2432 positive cases, including 150 those of migrant labourers, besides 50 deaths.
Meanwhile, Telangana high court, which was hearing a public interest litigation petition, on Monday observed that the number of tests in the state was too low. It suggested to the government to step up testing by introducing mobile testing as is being done in Kerala.
It asked the state government to submit the details of testing for Covid-19 being done in the state and posted the case to May 26 for further hearing.
