Staff crunch hits Telangana’s Covid-19 testing drive hard

HYDERABAD: As the state continues to record grave Covid-19 statistics, the drastic fall in the number of tests being conducted has become a major cause for concern. The data put together by the state health department reveals that for the last five days, the state has not been able to cross the one lakh mark in the number of tests conducted.
On April 29, only 77,091 tests were conducted compared to 1.08 lakh tests which were conducted five days ago, on April 24. Moreover, going by the current Test Positivity Rate (TPR), which is between 9.5% and 10.36%, for every 10,000 tests that are being conducted, on an average about 978 cases are being missed by the state.
Health officials admitted there was a staff crunch to handle the rush along with the vaccination and immunisation drive which has picked up pace in the state. Sources said that the number of people coming for vaccines has also increased ever since the state entered the second wave, making the task to test more people difficult.
“Before the vaccination for Covid-19 started, there would be queues for about 100 tests in each centre daily which was not such a big hassle for the existing staff. But now, in a few centres, local staff are seeking additional staff from government officials to manage the situation. Lack of infrastructure and adequate RT-PCR machines is also a reason,” an official source said.
This is despite the Telangana high court expressing displeasure at the state government earlier this month for doing fewer RT-PCR tests at a time when the second wave of Covid-19 is sweeping across the country.
“Out of the nine lakh Covid-19 tests conducted so far, only one lakh of them are RT-PCR tests. The rest are (RATs) Rapid Antigen Tests. You have to increase the RT-PCR tests to tackle the pandemic effectively,” a bench of Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy said during a hearing on April 6.
On Friday, the state recorded 7,664 new Covid-19 cases and 53 fatalities, taking the number of deaths to 2,261 and total number of positive cases so far to 4.35 lakh. So far, a total of 1.29 crore Covid-19 tests have been conducted in the state, out of which 4.35 lakh have tested positive and 3.55 lakh persons have recovered.
However, addressing the media with updates about Covid-19, Telangana’s director of public health Dr G Srinivasa Rao said that Telangana is in a better position compared to many other states in terms of tests. “Telangana is in the top three position in the country in number of tests being conducted. The testing facility is also only for those who have symptoms of Covid-19. People who don’t have symptoms are thronging the testing centers and thus putting themselves at risk of contracting the virus,” he said, adding that the next three to four weeks are very crucial for Telangana in the battle against Covid.
“If people continue to take all precautions at least till May, the state will pull out of the present situation,” said Dr Rao.