Ludhiana unable to meet daily Covid testing target
The Punjab health department has directed district health authorities to perform 900 RT-PCR and 350 rapid antigen tests daily, but only 206 Covid tests were conducted in Ludhiana on Monda
Even as rising Covid cases in some parts of the world have sent alarm bells ringing, the Ludhiana health department is not being able to meet its daily testing target of 1,250.
The Punjab health department has directed district health authorities to perform 900 RT-PCR and 350 rapid antigen tests daily, but only 206 in total were conducted in the district on Monday.
Of these, government hospitals in Ludhiana conducted 169 tests, including 137 RT-PCR and 32 rapid antigen tests, while private hospitals performed 37 tests, including 32 RT-PCR and five rapid antigen tests.
As many as 740 tests were conducted at government hospitals on January 1; 1,086 on December 31; 425 on December 30 and 655 on December 29.
Dr. Amarjit Kaur, senior medical officer at Ludhiana civil hospital said, “Two teams have been constituted to spread awareness on the need to increase testing. All gynaecology and indoor patients are being tested.”
Civil surgeon Dr Hitinder Kaur, said, “I have directed teams to conduct Covid tests of all the patients coming in with flu-like symptoms and patients with co-morbidities. People are not cooperating much as they feel Covid is not a threat anymore. But, our teams are spreading awareness at the block level.”
Punjab had on December 22 asked health officials to ramp up the number of daily Covid tests to 10,000 in the state, including 7,000 RT-PCR and 3,000 rapid antigen tests.