Ghaziabad: Focused testing finds 249 positive cases between Dec 1-8

Ghaziabad: More coronavirus (Covid-19) cases have been traced during the district’s health department’s focused testing drive in high case-load areas in December,

Ghaziabad: More coronavirus (Covid-19) cases have been traced during the district’s health department’s focused testing drive in high case-load areas in December, as compared to focused testing done during the pre-Diwali and post-Diwali period.

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Officials said that focused testing is different from the regular testing being taken up daily at the various testing centres in the city. The drive was initiated on the directions of the Uttar Pradesh government, which directed officials to map high incidence areas and take up testing drives there to trace infected persons.

As per health department data, the results of the drive from December 1 to December 8 have indicated that 13,226 tests were conducted and these resulted in 249 positive cases, with a positivity rate of about 1.88%. These included 9,494 tests through rapid antigen kits (which gave 142 positive cases) while 3,732 were taken up through the use of the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) (which gave 107 positive cases) method.

Meanwhile, pre-Diwali focused testing was conducted by the district health department from October 29 to November 12, during which a total of 20,852 tests were conducted which resulted in overall 139 positive cases, with a positivity rate of about 0.66%.

Likewise, about 21,801 overall tests were conducted during the post-Diwali period, from November 19 to November 30, and these yielded a total of 257 positive cases, with a positivity rate of about 1.17%.

“The idea of this drive is to filter out cases which have a potential to infect others. The drive will continue in high incidence areas and certain pockets have been identified where additional testing teams have been deployed. Although the positivity rate is comparatively less than the overall positivity, cases being traced are large in numbers and need to be isolated,” said Ajay Shankar Pandey, district magistrate.

According to officials, the testing teams are conducting tests in Indirapuram, Vaishali, Vasundhara, Karhera, Sahibabad, Kavi Nagar, Shastri Nagar and Vijay Nagar, among others, from where officials have found most Covid-19 positive cases from March to November.

“For conducting focused testing, we have deployed additional teams in these high case load areas and these teams are conducting tests after getting in touch with local residents’ welfare associations and councillors. This focused testing is different from the regular testing done at our static testing centres across the city. During the eight days’ period, we found about 249 cases, which is a big number considering the impact if such infected persons were left unattended, and they could have possibly passed on the virus to others,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer.

“We conducted focused testing on ‘super spreader’ groups before and after Diwali festival, and the positivity rate was low. During focused testing in high incidence areas, the positivity is higher. So, the results are encouraging and such testing will continue,” he added.

The ‘super spreader’ groups included groups of staff of malls, sweet shops, beauty salons, vehicle workshops and observation homes, inmates of Dasna jail and auto drivers, among others.