India needs to “significantly ramp up” the numberof tests done across the country to trace COVID-19 infection if the virus is tobe contained in time, experts said.
The death toll due to coronavirus rose to 414 and the numberof cases to 12,380 in the country on Thursday, according to the Union HealthMinistry.
While the number of active COVID-19 cases is 10,477, as manyas 1,488 people have been cured and discharged and one had migrated, it said.
Data obtained from the Indian Council of Medical Research(ICMR) said, till April 14, the number of samples tested stood at 2,44,893, anincrease of 27,339 from the corresponding figure till the previous day(2,17,554).
Experts feel the figures are modest for a count of the sizeof 1.3 billion and “much more number of tests” are needed to combatCOVID-19 outbreak in the country.
According to worldometers.info which maintains a globaldatabase on coronavirus cases and tests conducted, the US, where over 26,000COVID-19 deaths have occurred, has done 31,00,387 tests averaging about 9,367per million of population.
The figures for India is 2,44,893 tests averaging 177 permillion of population.
Spain and Italy, two countries which have also seen severalthousands of fatalities, have done 6,00,000 and 10,73,689 tests respectively.
Dr Ravi Shekhar Jha, Senior Consultant and Head of theDepartment of Pulmonology at Fortis Escorts, Faridabad, said India is going inthe right direction but it is not enough.
“Given the massive size of our population, the numberof tests needs to be ramped up and should be conducted more rigorously. We needto do effective contact tracing and test them so that those people in turn donot infect others,” he told PTI.
The number of samples tested till March 28 stood at 27,688,a rise of 7,038 from the corresponding figure till March 27, according to ICMRdata.
“The rise in number of cases happening is also becausein the last few weeks during the lockdown, people who came in contact withaffected people were traced and tested. This has to be increased manifold if wehave to contain coronavirus in time, otherwise it will be a difficultaffair,” Jha said.
Dr Sandeep Budhiraja, Group Medical Director at MaxHealthcare, said it has been decided to conduct coronavirus tests on “allour workforce and patients across the country”.
“Priority will be to test our admitted patients and newpatients being brought in. And, the front-line healthcare workers,” hesaid.
India is doing lot of tests, but it is not enough comparedto what the US and Singapore and other countries are doing, he said, adding,”much more testing needs to be done”.
Another expert from a leading private hospital here, who didnot wish to be named, said, “The volume of tests conducted need to beramped up significantly to capitalise on the gains from the lockdown”.
Two kinds of diagnostic tests are being currently used inIndia — RT-PCR test and rapid antibodies test, according to global healthnorms.
A reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)test is a laboratory technique combining reverse transcription of RNA into DNAthat detects the virus while the antibody tests, which use blood, detect thebody’s response to the virus.
Dr Arvind Kumar, noted lung surgeon at the Sir Ganga RamHospital, said the key to fighting the COVID-19 battle is “testing,testing and testing” and then “quarantining and treating”.
“The more number of people we screen, the greater ourchance of winning this fight against COVID-19. The number of tests have to besignificantly increased,” he said.
In Delhi, which has seen 1561 cases and 30 deaths till April14, over 16,000 samples been tested till that period.
“Number of cases were rising and they will increase evenmore now, as more testing is done. We are still on the rising limb of theepidemic curve. Also, people are learning social distancing, sneezingetiquette, which are important elements in this fight,” said Dr RajeshChawla, a pulmonologist at Apollo Hospital.