Health Ministry urges states & UTs to step up rapid antigen tests; releases new advisory

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan and the Director-General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Dr Balram Bhargava have advised the chief health secretaries of all states and Union Territories (UTs) to ramp up early testing of potential COVID patients and their isolation. According to a release by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the duo has collectively suggested their colleagues to implement several emergency measures to contain the surging COVID cases including those of the Omicron variant.

Measures to be implemented across all states/UTs

In the latest order by the Centre, all states and UTs have been advised to increase the rapid antigen testing (RAT) of COVID-19 by setting up multiple RAT booths at different locations on a 24X7 basis. Moreover, the RATs must be allowed at all government and private healthcare facilities and must be done without the requirement of any accreditation. The ministry has even stated that any individual having fever with or without symptoms such as cough, headache, sore throat, breathlessness, body ache, loss of taste or smell, fatigue, and diarrhoea will be considered a potential patient until proven otherwise.

The states have been advised to test all such individuals and isolate them under the guidelines of the Health Ministry until the test results confirm their health status. In addition to widescale RATs, the Centre has also ordered the states/UTs to encourage the use of self-test kits for asymptomatic individuals. According to the Centre, it has approved seven home testing kits to date and two of them can be availed from the Government e-Marketplace's (GeM) official website. All the states and UTs have been advised to institute emergency procurement procedures for facilitating an unhindered supply of these commodities.

The states and UTs are also supposed to conduct the RATs in accordance with ICMR's algorithm and all RTPCR and RAT results must be uploaded on the ICMR portal, in order to maintain an accurate record of the cases. Moreover, exploring public-private partnership models to establish innovative and convenient centres for expeditious testing has also been suggested by the Centre. The Centre's notice comes after India reported 16,764 fresh COVID-19 cases and 1,270 Omicron cases with 220 fatalities in the last 24 hours.

Image: ANI