Over 11 lakh kits are being distributed across all districts of Jharkhand to ramp up Covid testing for the next month or so as a part of the state health department’s efforts to ensure early detection of patients even as the daily infection rate has dropped in last few weeks.

Health department sources said on Friday that a total of 4 lakh RAT and approximately 7,66,440 VTM (viral transport media) kits for RT-PCR tests have been allocated to districts. “We have already started dispatching stocks to all districts. The state government’s focus is to continue testing as many people as possible on a daily basis to prevent chances of any undetected Covid-19 cases or formation of clusters anywhere in view of concerns over new variants of the virus,” said an official engaged with management of the kits.

Providing details of the number of kits being allocated, he added, “In Ranchi, which has the highest floating population, has been given 41,600 RAT kits and 1.34 lakh VTM kits. Similarly, East Singhbhum, another key district, has got 35,200 RAT kits and 84,000 VTM kits. In Dhanbad, we have dispatched 20,800 RAT and 50,400 VTM kits. Districts are free to identify vulnerable areas for rolling out testing drives in their respected domains.”

The official further added that Jharkhand has already received five mobile RT-PCR testing vans with the help of JITM Skills Private Limited, a private agency which has partnered with the state health department for augmenting testing capacity. “In another fortnight, mobile RT-PCR vans too will be rolled out in areas with maximum gatherings like haats, bazaars etc,” he said.

Last month, the state health department had directed all districts to set up dedicated 24x7 testing points at all major transit points, such as bus stands, airport, railway station, interstate borders, in view of easing restrictions and allowing free movement of people.

On an average, about 45,000 samples are being tested on a daily basis at the moment and the state’s positivity rate was 3.40 per cent as of July first week.

State director of the National Health Mission Uma Shankar Singh said the department was not letting its guard down despite a drop in Covid-19 cases. “Uninterrupted testing is a crucial component of thwarting further spread of the virus. Therefore, the state government has decided to not allow complacency to set in,” he said.