COVID-19: Odisha govt to conduct 2 lakh rapid tests to ease life of quarantined people

The Odisha government on Friday said it was planning to conduct two lakh rapid COVID-19 tests to give relief to the people who have been placed under home quarantine.

It has become a difficult task to place so many people under home quarantine after they returned to Odisha from highly-affected states and countries, the Director of Medical Education and Training (DMET), Prof C B K Mohanty, said.

In the state government's briefing on COVID-19, Mohanty stressed on the social distress being created due to the quarantine period along with the month-long lockdown period.

"Even reports have been received about people attempting suicide after being placed under home quarantine," he said, adding that rapid COVID-19 tests will relax a large number of people as well as the administration, which has been keeping a tab on all the people placed under quarantine.

Justifying the need for conducting rapid tests, Mohanty said though about one lakh people have already come to their native places from different parts of the country after the COVID-19 outbreak and more people are expected to return when the lockdown ends.

The approval of antibody-based rapid testing of coronavirus by the Centre will be a blessing for Odisha since the current confirmatory real-time PCR (polymerase chain reaction) is time-consuming," Prof Mohanty said.

Allaying the fear of community transmission of the disease in the state, particularly Bhubaneswar, where 38 people have so far tested positive for COVID-19, Mohanty said the existing data does not support community transmission.

In India, a total of 1,44,910 samples have been tested until now, of which 6,412 (4.42 per cent) have tested positive. On the other hand, Odisha by April 9 had tested 3,249 samples, of which 48 (1.47 per cent) tested positive for COVID-19," the state government's COVID-19 spokesperson Subroto Bagchi said.

Bagchi said the test ratio will certainly increase after functioning of state-of-the-art COBAS 6800 system at Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC) here.

This apart, requisition of nearly one lakh rapid test kits soon will also enhance the state’s COVID-19 testing capacity, he said.

“What has, in fact, worried the administration is that 80 per cent of coronavirus positive cases in Odisha are asymptomatic,” he said.

“We are the second such institute in the country and first in eastern India to put in place the advanced COBAS 6800 system, an automated state-of-the-art COVID-19 testing system manufactured by Roche Diagnostics,” RMRC Bhubaneswar Director Sanghamitra Pati said.

While the state's existing testing capacity is 475 per day, it will soon be about 1,400 after RMRC starts its new testing machine, she said.

Besides, the state government's spokesperson on COVID-19, informed that till 9 am on Friday, a total of 3,249 samples have been tested, of which 48 are positive.

Out of the total positive cases, two persons have already been cured and discharged, while one died, he said.

"At present, two of the 45 active cases are on ventilators,” Bagchi said, adding that 113 people are under hospital isolation.

Speaking about enforcement of the lockdown, Bagchi said from April 9 morning to April 10 morning, a total of 213 cases have been registered by the police for violations of regulations and guidelines related to COVID-19.

So far, a total of 63 cases have been registered in the state for rumour-mongering, he said.