SHILLONG: The state heaved a sigh of relief on Friday with close to 200 primary contacts of the 12 COVID-19 positive patients testing negative.
Of the 12, 11 are active cases after the first patient to test positive in the state succumbed to the disease.
Revealing this here on Friday, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said all the primary contacts traced so far have tested negative.
There are just over 200 primary contacts and over 5000 secondary contacts. Soon after the first patient tested positive, the state began contact tracing, quarantining and testing.
Informing that testing has been increased and around 180 tests are being conducted on a daily basis, the chief minister said that a few more machines would be made operational which would boost the capacity by another 80 in the next few days.
Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong said that altogether 1130 samples were sent for testing while 1048 were tested negative.
Tynsong said that 24382 people in the state have been screened and are under monitoring by the state government.
In addition, 5503 people are under home quarantine while 300 people are under institutional quarantine.
Tynsong also said that the government is monitoring 49,391 people on telephone. “These are the persons, including students who had entered the state before the lockdown”, he said.
A senior official informed that the exercise of contact tracing is difficult since the number is huge.
Reacting to a query about Genexpert test, the chief minister said that this would be done at NEIGRIHMS and there are two more machines which will be activated soon and as one machine has been activated, the testing capacity of the state has gone upto 180.
As for the rapid test kits, the chief minister said that these would be used once the Indian Council of Medical Research gives the go ahead.
He said that for now the government is focusing on RT-PCR tests.
Asked whether there was a dearth of personal protective equipment (PPE) in PHCs and CHCs in rural areas, the chief minister said that all the districts have been given their requirement adding if still there is any shortage it can be sorted out within hours.
He said the state has more than 70,000 PPE and would have around a lakh in a week’s time.
