The Centre on Friday, in a letter to states on the Covid-19 situation, said that any person who has a fever with or without cough, headache, sore throat, breathlessness, body ache, or other symptoms should be considered as a suspected case of Covid-19 unless proven otherwise.
India has reported over 1,200 cases of the new Omicron variant of Covid-19 so far. In view of the rising cases, the Center urged the states to increase testing. "Early testing of suspect patients and their contacts and isolating them expeditiously are one of the key measures to curb transmission of SARSCoV-2, causative agent of COVID-19," it said in the letter to the states.
If RT-PCR tests delay results, states should go for Rapid Antigen Tests or RATs and more booths should be set up, said the Center. "Multiple RAT booths must be set up in identified geographies and operationalised on a 24X7 basis to offer widespread testing and easier access to all citizens," said the government.
Read the full letter here:
"Based on the previous experience, it has been observed that if the number of the cases rise above a certain threshold, RTPCR-based testing leads to delays in confirming diagnosis due to its turnaround time of about 5-8 hours," the letter further read.
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