Telangana to ramp up tests, targets 5 lakh using rapid antigen kits

Sribala Vadlapatla | TNN | Updated: Jul 18, 2020, 06:21 IST

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HYDERABAD: Faced with criticism from various quarters, including the high court, on inadequate testing for Covid-19, Telangana has decided to scale up the rapid antigen tests. Top government officials said five lakh antigen tests would be done in the coming days.
Though the government did not set any timeframe to complete the antigen testing, officials said it would depend on the arrival of kits ordered from South Korea some time ago by the Telangana State Medical Services & Infrastructure Development Corporation (TSMSIDC). "We are getting the kits from a South Korean company approved by the ICMR," TSMSIDC managing director K Chandrasekhar Reddy told TOI.
A senior official added: "Once the kits land here, we will send them to the remaining 30 districts. The tests will be conducted at the district headquarters hospitals and also primary health centres (PHCs)."
Telangana continues to have one of lowest testing rates
The health authorities have set a target of conducting a minimum of 100 tests in all PHCs every day. “We have been getting a good response from people for these kits as they give results within one hour unlike the RT-PCR test which takes 24 hours,” an official said.
Telangana continues to have one of the lowest testing rates in the country and stands just above the bottomplaced Bihar. According to a NITI Aayog list (as on July 4), the number of tests per million in Telangana was a meagre 2,637. Andhra Pradesh conducted the second highest tests per million at 18,597 in the country. The officials had earlier placed an indent for two lakh antigen kits. These kits came in handy to take up Covid-19 testing in Greater Hyderabad, Rangreddy and Medchal districts where the virus spread was rapid and the number of cases kept rising.
Sources said the RT-PCR testing had come down at the PHCs, which began collecting the samples when the government announced that it would conduct 50,000 tests. “PHCs will be doing more antigen tests instead of RT-PCR tests,” an official said.