Ghaziabad achieves target of conducting 6,000 Covid tests daily

As new coronavirus (Covid-19) disease cases continue to be reported, daily testing has been ramped up to more than 6,000 tests per day in Ghaziabad district. According

As new coronavirus (Covid-19) disease cases continue to be reported, daily testing has been ramped up to more than 6,000 tests per day in Ghaziabad district. According to health officials, with this increase in testing they will be able to cover more suspected cases. They said it will also help in early detection and early referral in order to control the spread of the pandemic.

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According to official records, the district conducted 5,802 tests on September 29, and 6,025 tests on September 30, besides 6,014 on October 1. The overall 1,16,842 tests conducted in September have been the highest conducted in a single month since March in Ghaziabad.

“The daily testing in the district has reached 6,000, the highest single day figure since March. We have deployed additional teams for this. It is not only the additional deployment, but the teams are properly monitored every day which is helping achieve this. Officers deputed for the purpose monitor the working hours of the teams and ensure that they leave for the testing centres at a specified time and also submit records in a timely manner,” said Ajay Shankar Pandey, district magistrate.

“As we have reached the daily testing figure of 6,000 per day, we will now try to scale it up further,” he added.

The district in August conducted 92,384 tests. According to official figures of October 1, the district completed 3,20,449 overall tests so far, which include 1,90,090 tests conducted through rapid antigen kits.

The rapid kits were introduced in the district on June 26 and they now have a share of 59.31% in overall testing.

“Testing is done at 20 centres which also include mobile vans, mobile teams, etc. We have also issued 200 each of rapid antigen kits to 10 private hospitals which are providing paid Covid treatment. At private hospitals, testing through rapid kits is free. The hospitals also submit us daily records of tests. When the lot of 200 finishes, we issued more,” said an official from the district health department, not authorised to speak with the media.

“As per directions from the government, we are now conducting one-third of our daily tests with the help of reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests which are the gold standard to detect Covid. We have also deployed more lab technicians in our teams and this has also helped in increased testing,” the health official quoted above added.

According to the state control room records of October 2, Ghaziabad has overall 14,588 Covid-19 cases so far which include 12,545 patients discharged and 78 deaths.

Medical experts said that with the increased testing, the health department should continue to focus on the strategy of ‘test, track, treat and isolate’ in order to curb the fatality rate.

“Since there were resources available for increased testing in the district, the focus should be more for 100% testing in containment zones. Since the containment zones have been narrowed down with micro containment zones, the smaller population can be tested 100%. This will help us find our more suspected cases and they can easily be filtered out,” said Dr VB Jindal, former president of Indian Medical Association – Ghaziabad.

“Further, a part of the overall testing should also be conducted randomly for high risk groups which include healthcare workers, police personnel, senior citizens, etc. This will also help us check the spread of infection,” Dr Jindal added.