NEW DELHI: Delhi is set to see a surge in sample collections for Covid-19 testing after the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) gave the go-ahead for rapid antigen testing.
The state government is planning to introduce the rapid antigen kits in the most affected parts of the city. According to officials, these kits will be used for testing from June 20.
“We have started preparations. The kits are yet to come but we have identified places where it can be done and are in process of identifying staff and manpower,” said Neha Bansal, district magistrate, West District. However, all the districts are not yet prepared to start antigen testing. South District officials noted that they have not taken any steps on using this kit.
After Sunday’s meeting with the Home Minister Amit Shah, the Delhi government said that they are also going to speed up testing using the RT-PCR protocol.
They will double and triple the number of tests being done to 18,000 per day. The state health ministry had also asked private labs to connect with community healthcare centers to increase the capacity of testing.
“We have already increased testing. We are going to do more testing in containment zones on Wednesday. As of Tuesday, the number of tests is likely to go up to 1,600 in the West District,” Bansal added.
Antigen tests are conducted through swabbed nasal samples that detect antigens found on or within this virus. Compared to RT-PCR, the antigen tests take less time to get results.
“Proper diagnosis is required, one cannot be labelled wrongly positive or negative and that’s the difficulty of these tests. It takes less time and that’s the advantage,” said Dr. Jugal Kishore, head, Community Medicine Department, Safdarjung Hospital.
“There are many asymptomatic cases and a good number of people are positive. Contact tracing and surveillance should continue in these areas because our focus should be on people who are having symptoms. They should be isolated. There, we can save lives. Deaths are happening because people are approaching late, they are scared. The Government needs to provide a smooth system of admission and treatment,” added Dr. Kishore.
Rising containment zones
There are 242 containment zones in Delhi right now with the majority in North district, followed by South West District and South.