Tamil Nadu: Delayed results may be giving coronavirus time to spread faster, fear officials

On July 4, swab samples were collected from 183 vegetable vendors from the Uzhavar Sandhai at Thennur in Trichy. Six days later, the seven were declared Covid-19 positive. During this period, the seven vendors visited the market daily, interacting with traders and customers. After the results came, they got admitted to a government hospital.
Maintaining that none of their family members or close contacts had any Covid symptoms, health officials have not tested any of them.

In the absence of a proper mechanism to get those tested to isolate themselves until the results are out, there is a fear they could hasten the spread of the virus.
Several Covid positive people say there is a delay of up to three days in getting the results and in some cases they had to wait nearly five days. A man who recently tested positive at a private lab in Madurai said he immediately got admitted to a hospital. “Five days later, corporation authorities called me to inform that I tested positive.”
Officials blame overload of samples. In June, only 90 labs in the state were authorised to test samples. As cases started increasing, the number of samples being tested had to be increased. In districts like Coimbatore, samples were being tested increased to 3,200 a day. “This created a huge backlog,” said a health official.
Communicating the results also takes time. “Currently, after a swab sample is taken, it takes a few days just to get results. Private labs send the results to health officials who inform patients,” said an official.
In districts like Dindigul or Namakkal, samples are sent to other districts like Coimbatore which had adequate labs. So transporting the samples for the tests also takes time. In Chennai and Coimbatore, the results are declared relatively faster.
Madurai, despite having crossed 8,250 cases, has only four labs. The district has a backlog of 4,000 samples for which results are awaited. “This is equal to the daily sample collection in the district,” said district monitoring officer B Chandramohan. One reason for the delay cited is that the district’s testing capacity is 2,500 cases. The rest are sent to other districts.
Now, health officials are focusing on testing primary contacts first, so that the status of high risk contacts can be ascertained and isolated.
Officials admit there is a threat of faster spread due to delayed declaration of results. “We have ramped up facilities so that results can be declared in a day,’’ said Tirupur collector K Vijayakarthikeyan. In Trichy, the administration has said four more private labs will start conducting RT-PCR tests from Monday.
State health secretary J Radhakrishnan said pooled testing would shorten the turnaround time. Trichy, Coimbatore, Nilgiris, Tirunelveli and Salem are among the districts where pooled testing will be done.