Amid spike in cases, Delhi govt's new guidelines for COVID-19 testing

The Delhi government has issued a new set of guidelines for testing of COVID-19 patients, even as the coronavirus cases in the national capital continued to rise.

According to an order issued by the Director General of Health Services (DGHS) in Delhi on June 2, the revised strategy for COVID-19 testing is for symptomatic patients.

All symptomatic (ILI symptoms) individuals with history of international travel in the last 14 days; all symptomatic contacts of laboratory confirmed cases; all symptomatic healthcare workers or frontline workers involved in containment and mitigation of COVID 19; all patients of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) are to be tested, the order said.

Direct and high-risk contacts (diabetic, hypertension, cancer patients and senior citizens) of a confirmed case to be tested once between day 5 and day 10 of coming into contact with a confirmed case, it said.

Also, all symptomatic people within hotspots or containment zones; all hospitalised patients who develop ILI symptoms; all symptomatic among returnees and migrants within 7 days of illness are to be tested, it said.

According to the order, an ILI case is defined as “one with acute respiratory infection with fever more than 38 degrees Celsius and cough”. Similarly, SARI case is defined as “one with acute respiratory infection with fever more than 38 degrees Celsius and cough and require hospitalisation”.

All testing in these categories have been recommended to be done by real time RT-PCR tests only, the order said. Many patients have been unable to get their tests done in the last few weeks.

A record single-day spike of 1,513 fresh cases took the COVID-19 tally in Delhi to beyond 23,000-mark on Wednesday and the death toll due to the disease climbed to 606, authorities said.

A total of 2,30,145 COVID-19 tests have been conducted till date, according to the Delhi health department bulletin released on Wednesday.