TURA: Authorities in the Garo Hills are awaiting from the Shillong headquartered North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences the RT-PCR test results for Covid-19 of a returnee who’s rapid and swab tests turned out mixed results on Wednesday night.
The twenty-seven year old man was part of the group of returnees to the state from neighbouring Assam’s Tezpur region and had undergone a check up at the screening centre for Covid-19 set up at the Inter-State Bus Terminus (ISBT) on the outskirts of Tura. Tezpur in Sonitpur district is a green zone with no cases of the corona virus infection.
“He was feeling some discomfort so we conducted a rapid test for antibodies on him which turned out to be negative,” informed deputy commissioner Ram Singh.
Over 700 stranded citizens of the state had returned from different parts of the north east and were screened at Tura’s ISBT by teams of doctors from morning well into the late hours of Wednesday night.
The man, who hails from Ampati region, was discharged from ISBT for South West Garo Hills district along with other returnees the same evening.
However, another Rapid retest for antibodies conducted on him at the Ampati civil hospital, the same night, turned out to be positive causing a flutter as well as confusion.
It is worth mentioning that in the scientific and medical world the Rapid antibody tests are known to give inaccurate results and is used primarily for surveillance purposes.
He was placed under quarantine in a special wing of the hospital meant to deal with Covid-19 and the more accurate Truenat Beta CoV test, which uses a swab from the throat to diagnose diseases, was taken from him and dispatched to the Covid-19 testing centre at the Tura Civil Hospital.
Another sample was dispatched to NEIGRIHMS in Shillong for testing on the real time Reverse Transcription- Polymerase Chain Reaction or RT-PCR.
Both these tests, Truenat Beta CoV Test and RT-PCR are recognized by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the World Health Organization as the gold standard for frontline tests of Covid-19.
“The good news is that results from the Truenat Beta test released on Thursday has turned out to be negative and we are expecting the RT-PCR report by Friday,” informed South West Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner Ram Krishna Chitturi from Ampati.
As news swept through Garo Hills region about results of the previous rapid test conducted at Ampati, social media users went into a frenzy over the case going as far as to claim the infection had set in. Some even questioned authorities about the decision to allow the man to travel with others back to his home place despite officials and medics giving a reassurance.
