Tamil Nadu to conduct pool testing of samples: C Vijayabaskar

MADURAI: The State government has approved pool testing for Covid-19 diagnosis in areas with 2-5 per cent positivity rate, said Health Minister C Vijayabaskar during an interaction with TNIE on Saturday. Pool testing is a method of testing samples of up to five individuals as one (pool). If the pool tests negative, all the samples in the pool are considered negative.

According to the guidelines of ICMR, if the sample pool tests positive, all samples in the pool must be tested separately by RT-PCR. Areas with more than 5 per cent positivity, health workers who were in direct contact with patients and known contacts of patients are not to be tested in this method.

In an order dated July 17 by the Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, all nodal officers of government and private labs were told to implement pooled sample testing for Covid. The order also identified 21 districts fit for pooled sample testing (based on the positivity rate as on July 16).

They include Tirunelveli, Coimbatore, Salem, Tiruchy, Villupuram, and Erode (which has the least positivity rate of 0.86 per cent). The list also includes Pudukkottai which has the highest eligible positivity rate of 4.75 per cent.