Rajasthan offers Covid-19 testing facility to Delhi, neighbouring states

“In times of this crisis, neighbouring states which are overloaded with patients and short of testing facilities can get tests done in Rajasthan,” Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said at a meeting to review the pandemic situation in the state.

With Covid-19 cases increasing in neighbouring states, the Rajasthan government has offered testing facilities of up to 5,000 samples daily to neighbouring states.

Till now, some 1.3 lakh Covid-19 samples have been tested in five centres in Jaipur. Of these, 89,000 tests were of Jaipur and the rest were from other districts. (Himanshu Vyas/HT file photo)

“In times of this crisis, neighbouring states which are overloaded with patients and short of testing facilities can get tests done in Rajasthan,” Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said at a meeting to review the pandemic situation in the state.

Gehlot said States such as Delhi, Haryana, Gujarat, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh could get tests for their patients done in Rajasthan.

Rajasthan is among the states carrying out the highest number of testing.

Gehlot also announced that by July end all government hospitals will have oxygen supply through pipelines instead of cylinders.

The chief minister said Rajasthan had started from zero testing capacity which is now around 25,000 tests per day. He also said that the recovery rate has improved dramatically to touch 75% due to the constant monitoring and screening of patients.

Kalicharan Saraf, who was health minister in the previous BJP government, said the government was making false claims to win brownie points.

“The government claims that they are doing 25,000 tests daily and will soon increase it to 40,000. But according to media reports, the government is only carrying out 11,000 tests per day. So they are misguiding people,” said Saraf.

“If the government has testing facilities then why don’t they use it for people of Rajasthan first before trying to win cheap popularity by offering it to other states,” he said.

He said if 25,000 tests were actually being carried out, Rajasthan would have been able to control coronavirus till now.

Jitendra Chaudhary, head of the lab technicians association at SMS hospital, said using the CB-NAAT machines and pooled testing technique has helped to ramp up testing capacity in the state. There are 72 CB-NAAT machines being used for Covid testing. ICMR approved these diagnostic machines which are used for testing TB to be used for COVID testing.

Dr Virendra Singh, a member of the CM’s advisory committee on Covid-19 said that Rajasthan has more capacity to test than the samples received and so for a limited time period, testing facility can be extended to other states

He said while the testing capacity is adequate, the government should try to shorten the time lag in testing and providing the report to patients. “Reports should be available to patients within 6-8 hours instead of 2-3 days.”

While the state is increasing testing capacity across districts, it is declining in Jaipur because there is pressure of testing from other neighbouring districts in the Covid-19 testing centres. Of the total samples, 34% are those from other districts such as Tonk, Dausa, Karauli, Alwar and Bharatpur.

Till now, some 1.3 lakh Covid-19 samples have been tested in five centres in Jaipur. Of these, 89,000 tests were of Jaipur and the rest were from other districts.

Since the number of samples of other districts is more than those from Jaipur, the samples from Jaipur are often put on hold for 2-3 days which delays the test results.

Jaipur has been overtaken by Jodhpur in the number of tests. Jodhpur which has three Covid-19 testing centres is testing more samples than Jaipur. So far, 1.7 lakh samples have been tested in Jodhpur.

Currently testing is being carried out in 16 districts in the state though the chief minister and health minister have said that testing facilities will soon be developed in all 33 districts.