SHILLONG: Shortly after another maid servant of the senior doctor who had died of COVID-19 had tested positive, Meghalaya Chief Minister, Conrad K Sangma ruled out the possibility of re-testing on the ten COVID-19 patients in the state who have been declared fully cured.
“There is no question of doing a re-test on these ten patients since all the cases are fine. Even the protocols do not require for doing a re-test,” Sangma said.
To a question if the Government is looking for mass testing in view of the increase in the capacity of testing facilities in the State, he said that apart from having testing centre, it was challenge to have testing kits
“It may not be possible for us to do that. But this does not mean we will not take immediate steps whenever required. We will do the test as per the needs and requirement,” he said.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister said that there were over 8,000 secondary contacts of the COVID positive cases detected in the state and that would be difficult for testing all of them. He, however, said the government was concentrating at the high-risk primary contacts.
On the new COVID-19 patient detected in the State, he said that she was among the 181 high-risk primary contacts which the Government had identified.
“We had done a re-test on these 181 high risk primary contacts even though the protocols don’t require us to do it. Now, we felt it was the right decision to ensure that we are much safer,” Chief Minister said. she was a maid servant of the senior doctor who had died of COVID-19.
“We had done the test on April 16 and the test came out negative. But the person and whole family was put under quarantine,” Sangma said.
Chief Minister also said that the husband and two children who are the primary contacts, tested negative.