HYDERABAD: From being infamous for its abysmally low Covid-19 testing, Telangana has now climbed the ladder and occupies the ninth position among all States in the country when it comes to the average number of tests conducted per day for every million people.
According to the information shared by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on Sunday, the State conducts 637 tests on an average per day per million population (pdpmp). This is above the national average of 545 tests pdpmp. But it is still a long way from the top. Neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, which stands second in the country in terms of Covid-19 testing, conducts 1,391 tests pdpmp on an average. Goa is at the top with 1,584.
Telangana has been gradually ramping up the daily testing numbers over the past few weeks, especially since it started to conduct Rapid Antigen Tests on a large scale. From just about 2,637 tests per million in the first week of July, it has reached 35,673 per million. However, this number is still less as compared to some other States, including AP, which conducts over 70,000 tests per million.
However, experts pointed out that just increasing testing is not enough. Former Union Health Secretary K Sujatha Rao said while the rise in testing is good, the positivity rate also needs to go down and be below five per cent. Unfortunately, Telangana is not doing well on this front.
The MoHFW on Sunday, also provided data of 10 States which have lower positivity rate than the national average, and Telangana did not make it to the list.While the country’s average rate is 8.57 per cent, Telangana’s stands at 9.27 per cent. Rajasthan has the lowest positivity rate of 4.18 per cent.
“Merely increasing the testing is of no use. Effective contact tracing and containment measures must be in place to control the spread of infection and decrease positivity rate,” Sujatha Rao said.
She added that while the State government might claim success on account of the low death rate, but there were reports of Covid-19 patients reporting health issues even after recovering from the disease.