COIMBATORE: Ever since COVID-19 started spreading in the district, officials from the Health Department have ramped up testing, owing to which many positive cases were found and duly treated.
However, keeping in mind that there are people who might be vulnerable to the infection such as those with heart ailments, for example, the department had, during the second week of April, begun a special screening of persons kept under ventilator support and those with Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) at government and private hospitals in the district for COVID-19 infection.
Internally known as the "SARI" plan, the department tested 351 people in the district and one person from Podanur had tested positive three days ago. The 59-year-old man was admitted to a private hospital for he had kidney failure and was also suffering with diabetes and SARI. Once he tested positive for COVID-19, he was shifted to ESI Hospital, here, said officials.
"Earlier, the RT-PCR test was carried out on people who had symptoms of the virus like cough, cold, fever and respiratory problems. But, close to 80 per cent cases that tested positive for COVID-19 were found asymptomatic. So, the screening method was added to check if patients admitted to hospitals for other issues like diabetes, kidney and heart-related problems had contracted the virus. Our assumption was that if they were given ventilator support, there could be a chance for infection as due to their health condition, they would be potentially vulnerable," said a senior official from the district health department.
"Till Wednesday 351 persons were tested and except one person from Podanur who tested positive, others tested negative for the infection," the official added.
Sixteen discharged
As many 16 people who were under treatment for COVID-19 at ESI hospital were discharged, as their test results came negative, on Thursday. Among them, 12 people, including seven females, are from Tirupur and four persons, including three females, are from Coimbatore. According to health officials, the discharged were infected with COVID-19 from close contacts.