In a swift anti-Covid move, the BMC on Tuesday increased pandemic testing by 149 per cent, which is 2.5 times more as compared to Monday figure. In the past 24 hours, 17,145 tests were done, while just 6,897 medical checks were performed at the week’s start.
Speaking about the move, a senior health official said, “We have directed all the laboratories to intensify testing as there are many super-spreaders, who are left undiagnosed.
Moreover, we have also instructed officials to check all patients with Covid-like symptoms, influenza-like illnesses (ILI) and severe acute respiratory illnesses (SARI).” According to the data, the civic body was conducting less than 10,000 tests over the last two to three months. But, now they have planned to increase it by four times just like the third wave.
Dubbing the Covid surge as the main reason for ramping up testing, state surveillance officer Dr Pradip Awate said that many hospitals are also conducting RTPCR tests on patients, who are being admitted for other illnesses and turn out to be Covid positive after testing.
Recently, health minister Rajesh Tope conceded there has been a decrease in testing, which needs to be intensified with immediate effect. “We have to improve the testing and we have already instructed all the districts across the state to improve the test positivity rate (TPR), which currently stands at 8 per cent,” he said.
