The East Singhbhum health department claimed on Monday that it had achieved the target of carrying out 10,000 rapid antigen tests on people at various places including containment zones and markets to speed up detection of Covid cases.

All visitors to Sakchi, the biggest commercial centre of steel city, had to undergo rapid antigen tests. The drive which began at 10 am continued for about five hours till 3 pm.

The on-the-spot rapid antigen test drive was supervised by the new Dhalbum SDO Nitish Kumar and special officer of Jamshedpur Notified Area Committee (JNAC) Krishna Kumar.

"We achieved the target of conducting 10,000 rapid antigen tests on a single day on Monday. The test was also conducted at different housing societies which were declared as containment zones," Dr R.N. Jha, civil surgeon of East Singhbhum district, told The Telegraph Online.

The health department had engaged around 400 medical personnel for the success of the drive.

Jha explained that rapid antigen tests detect the presence of viral proteins (antigens) expressed by the Covid-19 virus in a sample taken from the respiratory tract of a person. "The result of the test is made available within 15 minutes, " he said, adding that the objective was to trace, track and treat Covid positive patients.

The East Singhbhum health department has intensified the rapid antigen test drive keeping in view the spurt in Covid-19 cases.

So far, the district has reported 12,252 positive cases with 2,563 active cases. Around 9,400 patients have recovered while the death toll due to Covid in the district is 268.