The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) have jointly written to all the States/Union Territories, urging them to ensure that all symptomatic negative cases of Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) are mandatorily retested using the RT-PCR test.

“This is necessary to ensure that symptomatic negative cases do not remain untested and do not spread the disease among their contacts. This will also ensure early detection and isolation/hospitalisation of such false negatives,” said the official statement.

It has also been reiterated in the joint letter that while RAT is being used to increase access and availability of testing in the field, RT-PCR remains the gold standard of Covid tests, it added.

The Ministry also urged the States/UTs to urgently establish a monitoring mechanism in every district (a designated officer or a team) and at the State-level to follow up such cases.

“These teams will analyse details of RAT conducted on a daily basis in the districts and State and ensure that there are no delays in retesting of all symptomatic negative cases. The aim of States/UTs should be to ensure that no potentially positive case is missed out,” said the statement

They have also been advised to undertake an analysis on a regular basis to monitor the incidence of positives during the RT-PCR tests conducted as a follow-up, the statement added.

Covid-19 cases

Meanwhile, the total number of Covid-19 cases in India recorded a rise of 95,735 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the total toll to 44,65,863 till date.

The tally of total Covid-19 cases includes 9,19,018 active cases, 34,71,783 cured/discharged/migrated cases and 75,062 deaths, according to the MoHFW.

In the last 24 hours, as many as 1,172 Covid-19 deaths were reported in India, the official data showed. The current case fatality ratio stands at 1.7 per cent and the sample tested per million are at 32,128.4.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW