To get the number down of the growing cases of coronavirus infections in the city, Guwahati launched a unique ‘door-to-door’ testing program on Tuesday. It aims to conduct tests for every individual of the area with officials reaching each house to carry out the same.
The program was opted for after seeing an alarming surge in the covid-19 cases for the last two weeks.
The Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is looking after the progress of the program personally in the Pandu area which falls under the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC). Moreover, he has urged people to cooperate in the program aimed to benefit all and not create panic.
“In the state, 786 new cases were detected on Monday night. Of this, 598 were from Guwahati alone. We aim to conduct 3,000 tests in the Ward No 2 (Pandu area) in two days,” he said.
Standard Q Antigen test kits will be used for carrying out the unique testing strategy, named as ‘grid testing’ by officials to include all houses. “Those houses will be under containment. Others in the family- under home quarantine as per protocol – will be tested using the rapid antigen test kits. We will get results in 20 minutes. We will grid the houses and tests randomly one each from the houses in left, right, front, and back. If a person from any of those houses turn positive, we will test all members in the family and move on building up a house-to-house grid of the area and try to cover the entire area within two days,” the Minister explained
According to the Health and Family Welfare Department officials, the state government has obtained 200,000 rapid antigen testing kits for this quick testing.
Before the introduction of these, tests were done on RT-PCR and TrueNat platforms.
The project began in the Pandu area as it transformed into a hotspot of community transmission within no time. Officials fear the advancement as 90% of the 33,000 people infected did not have a travel history.
After the withdrawal of travel restrictions, 3,11,217 people returned to Assam by road, trains and air from different parts of the country, which increased the total number of cases.
“With a big rise in Covid-19 cases, Guwahati, Assam’s main commercial city, has entered ‘real pandemic phase’ with community transmission being witnessed,” the Health Minister said.
In a span of 11 days, the coronavirus cases in the Kamrup (Metro) district jumped to 2,741 from 63. 11.2 lakh people reside in Guwahati, headquarters of the Kamrup (Metro) district.
To tackle the spread, Assam’s state government declared a ‘complete lockdown’ in the district from June 28th.
Although the government is planning to extend the lockdown after July 12th as well, Sarma announced some relaxations for the public.
He said standalone groceries would be allowed to open for certain duration, but strict health and hygiene care must be maintained.
According to him, the number of Covid-19 cases in Assam rose up to 12,522. 4,623 of this number are active cases as 7,882 people have been discharged, three migrated to other states and 15 people died.
