With increasing instances of false negative reports of Covid-19, Karnataka plans to change the testing protocol to a syndromic approach.

K Sudhakar, Karnataka Minister for Health and Medical Education said, the change in protocol is to streamline the process of hospitalisation based on doctors recommendation.

After the recent surge of cases in the second wave, several instances have been reported where the laboratory test for Covid-19 is found negative even while the patient has Covid-19 symptoms or CT scan has detected infection.

Since the rules mandate that infected persons should have Patient Number issued by district authorities or BBMP to get admission in hospital, several patients whose report is negative have been facing the issues to get admission in hospitals.

“The State government has now decided to give patient numbers to such cases based on authorisation of doctors,” Sudhakar said. This will help Covid-19 infected persons to get timely admission and treatment in government hospitals and private hospitals through SAST reference, he added.

District review

Earlier in the day, Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, held video conference with DCs, CEOs of Zilla Parishad and senior cabinet ministers and instructed them to monitor people under home isolation, streamlining availability of beds, oxygen, medicine, and local management by task force committees set up at Panchayat level.

The Chief Minister also gave instructions that all hospitals should conduct an audit of oxygen and availability of Remdesivir.

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