Locally manufactured Rapid Testing Kits affordable, need ICMR certification; testing only way to know exact number
Afaq Bhat
Srinagar, Apr 20: The biggest worry for the governments in all the States and Union Territories across the country is that 80 percent of the people with COVID-19 in India are asymptomatic, or do not show symptoms of the infection.
The NDTV quoting a senior scientist at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar said, “80 per cent of the cases are asymptomatic. Our biggest worry is on their detection. There is no other way than contact-tracing.”
An expert while talking to Precious Kashmir said, “In Kashmir we also don’t know how many more people are COVID-19 positive as being asymptomatic is the biggest difficulty which the administration and doctors are facing.”
He said that since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in Kashmir, authorities have been stressing on contact tracing and in the beginning people who had a travel history were literally traced from their homes. “With the arrival of 12000 rapid testing kits in J&K everyone is hoping that testing rate will increase and asymptomatic patients can be tracked and cured.”
He said in many pandemic hit countries anyone having flu is tested for COVID-19 but in Kashmir that practice has not picked up as yet.
Dr Gangakhedkar told the news channel that the peak (number of cases) will not be so high. “In the second week of May, we will be in a position to evaluate it in a better way.”
The expert said that most of the medicos agree with Dr Gangakhedkar. “We will have to wait for one more month to know where do we stand,” he added.
An analyst said that with the spike in number of cases in Kashmir controlling COVID-19 still appears to be an uphill task. “We have surpassed 300 mark in the Valley. There are many people who have been put under quarantine. We don’t know how many among them are positive. We can just hope that they are fine. But the administration needs to be prepared to tackle any eventuality.”
According to the media reports the rampant testing kits which have been manufactured in the country cost anything between Rs 500 to Rs 700 but the scientists at ICMR are not sure about the results being shown by these kits.
“The new COVID-19 testing kits are affordable and these should be made available in the market for people to perform their tests on their own. But it would be only possible once ICMR gives a go ahead. Till then people will have to rely on the kits available in the government hospitals,” the analyst added.
It’s in place to mention here that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal recently cited instances of asymptomatic people testing positive for the virus and said, “Of the 736 samples collected recently, 186 were found to be COVID-19 positive and these people did not know that they were carrying the virus.”
COVID-19 patients remaining asymptomatic a worry
