Uttar Pradesh: Less than 2% test positive for Covid in random sampling across 75 districts

LUCKNOW: A random sample surveillance exercise undertaken by the Uttar Pradesh government across vulnerable pockets of all 75 districts last week indicated that 1.8 % persons had active infection.

A similar Indian Council of Medical Research survey released last week pegged that about 0.7% persons in 85 districts of India (including nine from UP) covered in the survey were exposed to Covid-19.
“As many as 3,475 persons were tested of whom 65 or 1.87% were found to be positive to the pandemic infection,” said principal secretary health and family welfare Amit Mohan Prasad.
He further said that no infection was found in 58 districts of the state. “The persons found positive belonged to 17 districts,” he stated.
“The cases have been found from slum areas and districts have been asked to intensify containment activities,” he said. To note, the ICMR survey also revealed that covid-19 risk was higher in urban areas, particularly slums.
Prasad said that in the wake of the cases in vulnerable pockets, including slums, old-age homes and protection homes for women and children, district officials have been asked to intensify the IEC, contact tracing and preventive activities in the listed areas.
Aimed to see if Covid-19 was spreading to areas other than the containment zones, the exercise began on June 12 across all districts divided into three categories. While 100 samples each have been collected from 16 high-burden districts (total 1,600), 50 samples each are to be collected from mid-level burden 40 districts (total 2000) and 20 samples each in the remaining 19 districts. Public health expert Dr Vishwajeet Kumar said: “This is a welcome step and demonstrates the government’s commitment to proactively identify cases and take containment measures.”
He expressed concern at the high percentage of positive cases from high burden districts. “The fact that 65 positive cases were identified through RT-PCR testing from just 1650 random samples in these districts indicate that 4% people have active infection there. This is alarming and calls for very strong containment measures in these districts.”
He added that in low burden districts, the sample size is too small to assess the true burden. Therefore, we cannot draw any conclusions and more intensive testing is needed.
The findings trigger another questions: Whether the positive cases are symptomatic? “If the cases were asymptomatic, the government will have to think about mass screening or testing like Delhi but if they had some symptoms, the awareness paradigm must work on encouraging self-reporting by people,” said Kumar, suggesting the cues given be used to improvise overall strategy for covid control to stay ahead of the impending risk.
This is the second exercise undertaken by the UP government to assess covid-19 situation in areas outside the containment zones. The first one focused on 72 migrant dominated villages in 18 districts and found zero positive cases.