The Jharkhand government has decided to set up dedicated Rapid Antigen Test booths in villages for mass testing of Covid-19 following an ICMR directive of prioritising rapid tests over RT PCR in the current scenario, officials from the health department said on Thursday.

The dedicated rapid Covid testing centres will also help in identifying positive cases among the several thousand migrant labourers who have started returning to Jharkhand after many states enforced lockdowns in the wake of the surge in Covid cases, health officials said.

Many migrant workers had reportedly dodged mandatory Covid testing at railway stations in the state recently. Such people could be tested in the villages itself once the dedicated RAT centres are set up, officials said.

In the letter addressed to the deputy commissioners of all the 24 districts in Jharkhand on Wednesday, National Health Mission (NHM) Director Ravi Shankar Shukla asked the district administrations to set up dedicated RAT centres for Covid testing in villages as well as cities for random testing of masses.

“ICMR has allowed Rapid Antigen Test at all private and government hospitals. Besides ensuring rapid tests at the healthcare facilities in your districts, it will be imperative to set up dedicated RAT centres in the cities and villages,” the letter stated.

The state also launched a special rapid Covid testing campaign on Thursday under which it aims to test at least 1.6 lakh residents, another letter from the NHM stated.

The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) issued revised Covid testing guidelines on Wednesday, allowing all the state governments to rely on rapid tests for testing the masses. The ICMR stated in its latest guideline that RT PCR tests were not mandatory if a person tests positive for Covid-19 in Rapid Antigen Test.

An official from NHM said that conducting large scale rapid tests will help the government identify cases of Covid-19 faster as test reports usually come faster in RAT than in RT PCR. The state, he said, can conduct Covid tests on the go at various public places also.

Rapid Antigen Tests are also conducted through nasal and throat swabs like RT PCR tests. However, the result of the test is out within an hour. Doctors say that RAT is a low sensitivity test when compared to RT PCR, and may not be as accurate as the latter. The RT PCR test, on the other hand, takes around 48 hours, but the results are more accurate, doctors from the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) said.

The Jharkhand government had last year made RT PCR tests mandatory for all symptomatic residents who test negative in rapid test.