Health dept directs 6 border districts to ramp up testing

Ranchi: The state department of health, medical education and family welfare has directed the administrations of six districts to ramp up their Covid-19 screening exercises.
Earlier this week, the district administrations of Jamtara, Koderma, Garhwa, Lohardaga, Chatra and Deoghar were directed by additional chief secretary health Arun Kumar Singh to screen more people for the viral infection.
In between July 12 and July 18, Ramgarh tested 3,525 people while Jamtara screened 3,969. Koderma tested 4,075 people while Lohardaga tested 3,019 people. Chatra screened 6,123 people while Garhwa screened 5,431 people and Deoghar tested 5,064 persons.
“Even though our testing figures are impressive, a few districts have low numbers. Many of them share their borders with neighbouring states and there is a footfall of people who arrive through trains and buses,” Bhuvanesh Pratap Singh, nodal officer for Covid-19 management in Jharkhand, said.
“However, the district administrations have been given new guidelines to ramp up their testing. We are hopeful of seeing a rise from next week onwards,” he added.
As many as 3.23 lakh people were screened across Jharkhand in between July 12 and July 18, the health department said in its report. However, the numbers have dipped from the last week of June, when nearly 4.4 lakh people were screened.
“Testing depends on various factors. One of them is contact tracing. Since Covid-19 cases have dipped statewide, the contact-tracing programmes have also slowed down. During the second wave, many people voluntarily opted for testing after developing Covid-19 like symptoms. With cases waning, these numbers have reduced as well. However, we are testing around 50,000 people on average each day,” said a senior doctor in the state health services, who is associated with the screening programme.
Earlier this month, over 4 lakh RAT kits were distributed and five mobile RT-PCR testing vans were launched to ramp up testing.
The fatalities have also dropped significantly from the end of June. While 12 deaths were reported in the last week of June, one death was reported in between July 12 and July 18.