Amid concerns about a possible fourth wave hitting Karnataka in the next few weeks, the State is now targeting at conducting around 30,000 tests daily from around 10,000 being done presently.
Although the State had revised its testing target and fixed it at 30,000 per day in mid-March, the daily tests have not crossed 10,000. Following recommendations by the State’s COVID-19 Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), a circular on the revised testing target had been issued on March 14.
Focus on ILI, SARI
State Health Commissioner Randeep D. told The Hindu on Tuesday that all districts will be directed to follow the March 14 circular on revised testing targets. “While the daily tests will be increased, the focus will as usual be on all ILI, SARI and primary contacts of the positive cases,” he said.
While a target of 15,000 and 5,000 tests per day will be fixed for BBMP and Bengaluru Urban respectively, the remaining 10,000 tests are to be conducted in the rest of Karnataka, he said.
As of now, around 3,000 tests are being conducted daily in BBMP limits. K.V. Trilok Chandra, BBMP Special Commissioner (Health) said that the testing numbers will be increased gradually. “The testing numbers were low as the number of contacts is also low due to less cases being reported daily. We are expecting some new guidelines after the Prime Minister’s meeting with Chief Ministers of all States on Wednesday,” he said.
On January 10, the Indian Council of Medical research (ICMR) had issued guidelines on purposive testing for COVID-19. The ICMR had said that contacts of COVID-19 patients do not need to be tested unless identified as high-risk based on age.
According to the advisory, asymptomatic patients undergoing surgical or non-surgical invasive procedures, including pregnant women in/near labour who are hospitalised for delivery, should not be tested unless warranted or symptoms develop. It said no emergency procedure, including surgeries, should be delayed due to lack of a test. Besides, inter-State travellers also need not be tested.
Despite this, for some time (when the transmission was very high after January 18 in the third wave), Karnataka was doing over 2 lakh tests. In fact, a total of 54,08,790 tests were done in January, the highest so far.
Following that the TAC had recommended that the State should go slow on testing. “Stop random testing and focus only on symptomatic persons,” the TAC had said, advising the State to limit the daily tests to 75,000. Subsequently, around 50,000 tests were being done till mid-March after which the numbers reduced to around 30,000.
Sources said the TAC had again in March end advised the State to conduct at least 20,000 tests daily. However, from the second week of April the tests further reduced to less than 10,000 on weekdays and less than 5,000 on weekends.
Focus on travellers
C.N. Manjunath, nodal officer for labs and testing who is also a member of the State’s Clinical Experts Committee, said that if the Test Positivity Rate (TPR) starts rising, random testing should be done for international travellers and for those who are in frequent public contact. “It is difficult to get people for testing as the incidence is still low as of now. But, if the cases start rising our testing strategy should be revised again,” he said.
TAC member V. Ravi, who also heads the State’s Genomic Surveillance Committee, said it is ideal now to follow the formula of testing 20 contacts for every positive case. “We will have to follow this strategy now irrespective of whether the contacts are symptomatic or not. This is because testing and identifying the infected is the only way to curb the spread,” he said.
