Ranchi district administration will be rolling out mobile vans to conduct rapid antigen tests (RAT) in localities where more than 50 people are willing to get themselves tested.
Deputy commissioner Chhavi Ranjan notified a WhatsApp-enabled mobile number, 9810592277, on which residents can ask for the service. “We will send vans to all those places based on the demand. We need to have at least 50 people ready for testing in a particular locality," he said on Tuesday.
Rapid tests are primarily used for first-level screening. A positive result in this necessitates a confirmatory RT-PCR test. State health officials explained that the new variant of the virus was not showing up in RT-PCR tests. Hence, an HRCT (high resolution computed tomography) scan of the chest is being recommended to ascertain the level of infection in the lungs to determine the course of treatment.
District administration officials said they would use RAT as the first line of screening since these tests can be conducted relatively easily.
The brutal second wave of the pandemic that hit Jharkhand in the last week of March has exposed severe shortcomings in the government's health machinery. As cases began piling up from April, the situation turned worse in Ranchi with people running from pillar to post to get admission in hospitals even as many treatment centres ran out of beds.
The number of fresh infections has been showing a downward trend since May 7 with less than 1,000 daily cases. On Monday, Ranchi recorded 526 new cases. However, Ranchi has been reporting double-digit death figures every day.
“The casualties are a nationwide trend. One of the reasons is the intensity of the latest strain of the virus. Unlike in the first phase, the health condition of those infected is deteriorating overnight. And the response time for medical intervention is usually very less. We all are worried about this,” remarked a doctor at Ranchi Sadar Hospital.
