Centre flags low Covid-19 testing in 9 states

Centre flagged a 'considerable decline' in the Covid-19 test level amid steeply rising cases

Low Covid-19 tests in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab have emerged as a matter of concern to the Union Health Ministry, which on Thursday wrote to these states along with six others asking them to augment their daily testing level.

“In the absence of sufficient testing, it is rather impossible to determine the true level of infection spread in the community,” Arti Ahuja, Additional Secretary in the Union Health Ministry wrote to the states.

In her letter to Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Jammu and Kashmir and Bihar, she flagged a “considerable decline” in the Covid-19 test level amid steeply rising cases and positivity rate across the nation and noted it was a "cause of concern".

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The health ministry letter dated January 5 coincided with India registering more than 90,000 fresh Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, less than 10 days after the third wave began with 9,000 odd cases on December 28. The number of daily tests crossed 14 lakh for the first time on Wednesday.

"With the increased detection of the Omicron variant and a majority of countries seeing multiple surges in cases despite high levels of vaccination, there is a need for continued vigil and efforts to prevent any deterioration of the Covid-19 scenario,” Ahuja wrote.

"Keeping in mind the unpredictable and highly transmissible behaviour of Omicron and the larger preponderance of asymptomatic cases, ramping up testing in the initial days itself will help to ensure that the infected individual does not spread the virus to others," she said.

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In a separate letter, Ahuja on Thursday also prodded the states to open control rooms at district and sub-district levels (for bigger districts) to ensure better access to services like ambulance transportation and booking of hospital beds.

The control rooms should be linked to the hospitals or designated Covid facilities so that patients can be appropriately channelised to the right places depending on their physical conditions. Also, each control room should have a dedicated fleet of ambulances.

The control rooms should also have adequate numbers of doctors, counsellors and volunteers besides having enough phone lines, computers and broadband connectivity so that they can have access to real-time data on testing centres and ambulances for guiding the callers.

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