COIMBATORE: In a shocking development, the Department of Public Health has temporarily suspended collection of data on how many residents in Coimbatore have tested positive after getting vaccinated. With the district’s caseload swelling each passing day, the health staff are being assigned more critical duties, official sources said.
“Initially, we had assigned a staff to collect details from block-level health officials on how many people tested positive after taking the jab,” an official said. “Later, we began to contact all positive persons directly. However, after the first week of April, the caseload spiralled, and contacting each positive person over the phone to know whether they took the jab became practically impossible,” the official added.
Speaking to Express, Director of Public Health T S Selvavinayagam said that his department would resume the data collection within a few days. “The current focus is on diagnosing as many infected persons as possible and hospitalising them. We can take up the data collection later,” he said.
Meanwhile, sources from the department said that they would soon incorporate an entry in the RT-PCR test form to understand the person’s status with regard to receiving the vaccine. “There has been no official communication in this regard, but soon we may have an entry on vaccine status on the form,” they added.
‘Now, focus is on diagnosis’
Current focus is on diagnosing as many infected persons as possible and hospitalising them. Data collection can be taken up later, said TS Selvavinayagam, Director of Public Health. Sources from the department said they would soon incorporate an entry in the RT-PCR test form to understand the individual’s vaccine status