Tracking ramped up: testing SARI cases in non-Covid dists

Upping the ante in its fight against the Covid-19, the state government has begun testing the people with SARI and ILI, the vulnerable group for novel coronavirus, in the non-Covid-19 districts in the state.

According to Minister S Suresh Kumar, Karnataka in-charge of media briefings on Covid-19, the districts that have reported nil coronavirus case are Chamarajanagar, Chikkamagaluru, Hassan, Haveri, Kolar, Koppal, Raichur, Ramnagara,Shivamogga and Yadgir.

Chief Secretary T M Vijay Bhaskar, in an order issued last Friday, had ordered the administration of non-Covid districts to test 100 samples of the people with SARI/ILI every day for three days starting Saturday and thereafter 50 samples a day.

Till Thursday, 4,631 samples of SARI and ILI patients were collected. Of which, 3,146 have returned negative while the results of 1,485 are awaited.

Dr Ravi M C, district health officer (DHO), Chamarajanagar, told DH, "Following the order, we collected the samples of 100 SARI and 118 ILI patients and sent it to Mysuru for testing. We did not get 100 samples per day as we did not find those many people suffering from SARI or ILI. While all the SARI samples tested negative, ILI reports are awaited."

Dr Umesh S N, DHO, Chikkamagaluru said, "Apart from hospital-based survey, the accredited social health activists (ASHA), auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs) and anganwadi workers also went door-to-door to draw swab samples, but we could not reach a target of 100 samples per day. The district has, so far, tested 415 people, 53 suffering from SARI and 364 suffering from ILI. none have tested positive and the reports of six are awaited."

"If Karnataka goes past 20,000 Covid-19 cases , our district has been asked to prepare to treat 306 patients. We have readied all the required infrastructure for that," Umesh said.

Dr Vijaykumar S N, DHO, Kolar, said, "Samples of 37 SARI and ILI cases have been sent for testing. So far, none has returned positive. Ever since the pandemic began, Kolar has sent 1,233 samples for testing, results of 150 are pending, 18 were rejected and 1,065 have come back negative," he told DH.

Dr Rajendra Doddamani, DHO, Haveri, said that they had tested 465 SARI and ILI patients since Sunday. Of which 126 tested negative while the results of 339 were awaited. The district was able to find more than 100 patients of SARI and ILI everyday.