TIRUCHI
Limited availability of test kits seems to be restraining COVID-19 testing in the residential areas, where positive cases are reported in the city in recent days.
According to the standard protocol, the health department of Tiruchi City Corporation and public health officials normally subject contacts of patients who had tested positive for the virus and disinfect places where the infected persons reside so as to control the spread of the virus.
They would initiate the follow up measures based on the laboratory results of positive patients being released on a daily basis. In addition to it, the health officials carry out random sampling, targeted sampling, cluster sampling and quarantine sampling on a daily basis.
According to sources, about 20,000 samples have been tested in Tiruchi district since the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) granted nod for COVID-19 testing facility at K.A.P. Viswanatham Medical College in April. About 200 samples were tested initially a day. It was scaled up gradually. Depending upon the situation, about 500 samples are tested daily.
However, residents in places where fresh cases of COVID-19 emerged have raised apprehensions on insufficient number of testing of contacts and preventive measures. They alleged that the health department of the Tiruchi Corporation had brought down the scale of disinfection measures in and around the affected areas.
Citing the visit of two health workers of the Tiruchi City Corporation to an apartment in the State Bank Officer’s Colony on Lawsons Road on Friday after a 40-year-old resident of the apartment was tested positive for the virus, the residents said that the health workers just noted down the details of residents and promised to visit them again to collect swab samples of neighbours of the affected person. During the survey, they told the residents that they would collect samples as soon as they received testing kits as they were in demand. But, the health workers had not returned yet.
Residents further alleged that the health officials had not even stuck notice in front of the house of affected persons so as to alert the neighbours or those visiting the apartment.
“We expected that the health workers would at least disinfect the places of the affected person and the elevator of the apartment. They have not been disinfected yet. Many outsiders come to the apartment as usual and use the elevator,” said Vimal, a resident of SBI Officer’s Colony.
Senior district officials however maintained that about 5,000 kits were available in Tiruchi for COVID-19 testing. But, whether the number was proportionate to the rising demand remained a moot point.
When contacted Corporation Commissioner S. Sivasubramaniam told The Hindu that it had been instructed that testing could be done on those vulnerable and those, who had symptoms of COVID-19 virus. It would turn unproductive if each and every resident of apartments were subjected for testing except those who had been in close contacts of the affected persons.