SHILLONG: Meghalaya Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma on Friday informed that the testing of swab samples collected from all the primary contacts of state’s first COVID-19 patient, a doctor, who expired on Wednesday, would be completed within next two days.
Talking to media persons after holding a review meeting in Shillong Civil Hospital, the Chief Minister admitted that it was a huge task since the lists of primary contacts of the patient was very large.
Stating that the Government has to be ready to tackle to different kind of situations, he added that the Government wanted to increase its capacity of carrying 400 to 500 testing on a single day for which it was working towards setting up of two to three more testing laboratories in the State .
We are lucky to have an institute like NEIGRHIMS which has the capacity to conduct 100 tests on a single day,” Sangma said.
On being asked if the Government has identified the carrier of COVID-19 virus that took life of the state’s first patient, the CM said that the issue of tracing the carrier or contact tracing was a very crucial aspect and the government was working on it.
“Right from day one, I have been saying that there are two to three possibilities which might have happened and it is obviously a challenge. We are trying to work on it from different angle and to see the individual who was first affected and the immediate contact tracing has to be done. We are focusing on this aspect at the moment,” he said.
According to him, the Government is also looking at the other options adding that the only way is to be proactive and to do testing on a large scale.
During his meeting with the officials and doctors of the Hospital, the Chief Minister was briefed about the situation and discussions were held to ensure that there was no communication gap.
“I also wanted to meet the doctors and have better understanding of things. I would like appreciate on the work which is being done by doctors and health workers who are on the frontline . We also had discussion on the way ahead,” the Chief Minister said.