The number of COVID-19 tests done in Bengal till Tuesday is 6,182 of which 713 were done between Monday and Tuesday. Till Monday, 5,469 samples were tested in Bengal for COVID-19. So far, 220 rapid tests have been done in vulnerable parts of Kolkata and Howrah. The number of active COVID-19 cases in Bengal increased to 274 on Tuesday of which 29 were detected in the last 24 hours. The number of COVID-19 deaths in the state is now 15.
Why has been the number of tests so low in the state? A report published by The Wire, earlier this month – on April 11 – mentioned that West Bengal has performed the least number of tests for the virus amongst all the large states in India. The highest number of tests in the country had been conducted by Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Kerala.
The state government has however, come up with the reasons for such low number of tests initially.
What the government says
State government officials said that Bengal was initially lagging behind in tests as the kits received from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) were “apparently defective” and hence throwing up a large number of “inconclusive results”.
The government said that this had led to repeat/“confirmatory” test run “thereby causing a delay in the generation of final test report”. The state has also said that there was no problem earlier when the testing kits were being received directly from National Institute of Virology, Pune. Recently, the supplies to Government Labs in West Bengal have been routed through ICMR-NICED, Kolkata. This has led to the huge backlog and delay in the coming of the final test reports, an official said.
Dr Shanta Dutta, Director of the NICED Kolkata who had raised questions last week on the number of samples being sent to NICED being particularly low, later said that “it is unfortunate that the kits are not standardised to give exact results. It is difficult for each of the medical colleges to standardise the kits, hence, they are showing different and inconclusive results”. On Monday, NICED Kolkata replaced the existing kits with new kits from National Institute of Virology, Pune. According to an official, the number of tests being done since has increased, to make the number of tests till Tuesday 6,182. On an average 750 to 800 are being targeted now. In addition, rapid and pool tests are also being conducted, the official said.
Safety of doctors and healthcare workers
An area of concern has been the way things are being allegedly handled in hospitals. Seven doctors and a patient from Calcutta Medical College have tested positive and were shifted to Beliaghata Infectious Diseases Hospital for COVID-19 treatment. With more doctors and health professionals testing positive, interns of Calcutta Medical College expressed their grievances and alleged “mismanagement of COVID-19 suspects” by hospital authorities.
In a press release, they demanded “mass testing of all health workers, proper isolation of health workers in the hospital premises to prevent community spread by the health workers”.
They demanded the immediate closing of Eden Hospital, its proper fumigation and testing of all those posted there. The interns alleged that three shifts of healthcare workers, including interns, “were exposed to a COVID suspect patient without any adequate protection” in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. “Following this exposure, the authority denied quarantine facilities and testing of these contacts by framing medically incorrect case and primary contact definitions,” they said.
The interns have said that those exposed had been asked to resume work instead. After a delay of a week and several protests, the authorities agreed to testing and promised quarantine facility. But this too, did not follow the guidelines, they alleged. Apart from this, there have been bureaucratic delays in testing of suspects in various departments of Medical College, Kolkata, and non testing leading to exposure of suspects to others, they said.
Meanwhile, on Monday, the Indian Medical Forum (IMA) and seven other organisation of doctors in West Bengal have written to chief minister Mamata Banerjee, to see that the government ensures that workers are provided with necessary protective measures as per ICMR and WHO guidelines and to check that PPEs and masks also maintain these organisations’ guidelines.
The associations appealed to allow local administrations to be empowered to order testing and sample collection at sub divisional level. Guidelines should be maintained for transportation of healthcare workers and COVID-19 confirmed and suspected patients.
Number of tests increasing, but more caution needed
According to another report, West Bengal is reporting a higher positivity rate – which means a higher percentage of the number of tests is showing positive results, compared with other states like Assam and Bihar for example. For every 16 samples the state has tested, it has found a positive case. The corresponding number for India as a whole is 26, says the report of scroll.in.
While the number of tests has increased in the state, experts have been quoted in various reports suggesting both in Bengal and in other states the need for caution and increase tests further and add the facilities of rapid testing and pool testing beyond the hotspots, as well as stricter vigil on the health conditions of doctors and healthcare workers and increasing their testing.
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