Test everyone with flu symptoms, expand RAT facilities, Centre tells states as Covid-19 cases rise

With India’s Covid-19 numbers racing past the 20,000-mark – a three-fold increase in daily case count within four days – the Union Health Ministry on Friday asked the states to commence emergency purchase of rapid diagnostic kits to test everybody having flu or diarrhoea symptoms so that a large section of Covid-19 positive individual scan be isolated quickly.

“Any individual presenting with fever with or without cough, headache, sore throat, breathlessness, bodyache, recent loss of taste or smell, fatigue and diarrhoea should be considered as suspected case of Covid-19 unless proven otherwise by confirmation of another etiology,” Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan and ICMR director general Balram Bhargava said in a joint letter to the states.

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The advice is to test all such individuals and while awating the test results, they should be advised to immediately isolate themselves and follow the home isolation guidelines.

The states have been asked to institute emergency procurement procedures to facilitate unhindered supply of diagnostic commodities for Covid-19 and appropriately refine the procurement procedures for emergency procurement from market to expedite the process of expanding the diagnostic network.

The latest directive from the Centre comes on a day when India’s Covid-19 numbers raced past the 20,000-mark – a dramatically high jump of 7,000 odd daily cases reported daily between Dec 15-27, riding high on increased caseload in Maharashtra and Delhi, and in the metro cities.

The states have been asked to rapidly augment the rapid antigen test network if the number of cases rises above a threshold value as RT-PCR test takes about 5-8 hours to give results. The advice is to set up multiple RAT booths that would give citizens round-the-clock options to test themselves.

“RATS may be allowed at government and private health care facilities including all hospitals, dispensaries, nursing homes, clinics, district hospitals, primary health centers, etc. No accreditation is required for undertaking rapid antigen testing by any healthcare facility,” the order said.

Since December 15, India’s Covid-19 testing numbers remained somewhat stagnant at around 10-12 lakh tests per day. The highest 12.50 lakh tests were conducted on December 30.

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