NEW DELHI, Apr 21:
The nationwide tally of confirmed infections neared 20,000 today with new cases reported from various States and the death toll crossed 600. The Union Health Ministry officials also said the recovery rate has improved to 17.5 per cent and a record number of 705 patients were cured and discharged on Monday itself.
Overall, more than 3,800 persons have been cured and discharged so far, while there are more than 15,000 active cases in the country now, as per figures announced by various state governments.
While West Bengal reported three more deaths today, a political standoff emerged between the state and the Centre after Union Home Ministry said the State Government was not cooperating with the Central teams visiting there to assess the COVID-19 situation.
The State’s ruling party Trinamool Congress said the visit of Central teams to West Bengal was like “adventure tourism” and asked why such delegations were not sent to states with much higher numbers of infections and hotspots.
Later in the day, one of the two teams sent to the State visited certain areas of Kolkata, escorted by the Border Security Force (BSF) and State police personnel.
At a daily press briefing on the COVID-19 situation, Home Ministry Joint Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava said the Centre has sent teams under Disaster Management Act to four States — Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. While Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are extending full support, the Government in West Bengal is not doing so, she said,
While new cases were also reported from various States including Odisha and Kerala — where the infection spread has been relatively slower — as many as 115 families residing at the President’s Estate in the national capital have also been put under self-isolation as a preventive measure after a sanitation worker’s relative tested positive for the deadly Coronavirus.
A Rashtrapati Bhavan communique, however, clarified that till date no employee of the President’s Secretariat has tested positive and the Secretariat along with the local administration is taking all the preventive measures under the Government guidelines.
A COVID-19 positive patient from central Delhi, who was neither an employee of the President’s Secretariat nor a resident of the President’s Estate, had died on April 13 and after contact tracing it was found that a family member of an employee of the President’s Secretariat had been in contact with the deceased, the statement said. The employee and his family members are residents of the President’s Estate.
In the national capital, there are 1,603 active cases of COVID-19, while 47 people have died of Coronavirus so far, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said.
Kejriwal also announced a special testing facility for mediapersons from Wednesday, after Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra reported positive test results for several journalists and other staff members of media organisations.
In Rajasthan, the Central team discussed the coronavirus situation over a video-conference with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, who reiterated the state government’s demand from the Centre to deal with the pandemic. (PTI)
Don’t use rapid test kits for 2 days: ICMR
India’s apex medical research body ICMR today advised States to stop using the rapid antibody test kits for next two days till it examines their quality in the wake of complaints that they are not fully effective.
Last week, India procured five lakh rapid antibody test kits from two Chinese firms and they were distributed to several States reporting rising cases of coronavirus infection.
Rajasthan government today said that the kits were giving out inaccurate results.
At a press briefing, Head of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases at Indian the ICMR, Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar, said the companies which supplied the kits will be asked to replace them if the kits are found to be faulty.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has been the nodal medical body in India’s fight against the pandemic.
“We have received complaint from one State and so far discussed the issue with three States. High variations ranging from 6 to 71 per cent have been reported between the results of the rapid tests and-PCR tests. We will advise States not to use these testing kits for the next two days,” he said.
“These kits will be tested and validated in the field by teams from our eight institutes after which we will issue a clear-cut advisory for the states. If there is some fault in the batch, we will ask the company to replace the kits,” Gangakhedkar said.
Officials clearly indicated that the kits over which questions have been raised are from China.
Rajasthan health minister Raghu Sharma today said the kits gave only 5.4 per cent accurate results against the expectation of 90 per cent accuracy and therefore were of no benefit.
In the wake of adverse reports about quality of Chinese medical equipment, spokesperson in the Chinese embassy Ji Rong last week said China attaches great importance to quality of medical products.
“We hope that foreign buyers can choose products certified by Chinese regulatory authorities and with production qualifications when importing relevant products,” Ji had said.
She said the Chinese authorities introduced stricter regulatory measures, requiring exporters to declare that their supplies have obtained the registration certificate for medical device from the State Food and Drug Administration and meet the quality standards of the importing country.
About questions over quality of the tests, Gangakhedkar said that these were first general tests and may show variations.
It has been just three-and-half months since the disease appeared and so any test will have to be refined further, he added.
At present, the government uses the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests to detect coronavirus from throat or nasal swab samples of people. These take around five to six hours to show the results.
In the rapid antibody tests, the blood samples of suspected patients are taken, and it normally takes around 15-30 minutes to give the result.
The Government has recommended the use of rapid antibody tests in hotspot areas.
“It is to be used for surveillance and for epidemiological purposes in such areas. The-PCR test is the gold standard for frontline test and antibody test cannot replace this test. Utility of rapid antibody test is primarily for assessing prevalence of infection in a particular area,” officials earlier had said.
India has been facing severe shortage of testing kits amid rising cases of the coronavirus.
Asked if the number of cases would stabilise, Gangakhedkar said, “The doubling time of cases is increasing, the current situation indicates that significant increase in number of coronavirus cases is unlikely.” (PTI)
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