TURA: As many as seven people who were quarantined and placed under corona care centres in Tura after testing positive for Covid-19 have been cleared of the disease and released on Friday, informed West Garo Hills deputy commissioner Ram Singh.
All seven recovered patients belong to central paramilitary forces of the BSF and CRPF.
“All seven were tested and found free of the disease and allowed to be released as per health protocols. We now have only nine active cases lodged in the corona care centres,” said Ram Singh.
He also informed that contact tracing and testing of all primary and secondary contacts in Dadenggre hospital turned up negative while a final report on 19 persons tested at Phulbari hospital are due to be released shortly.
Rapid Antigen Tests to be new protocol for testing: Deputy commissioner Ram Singh has informed that random testing will now be primarily with the Rapid Antigen Tests which can detect within minutes if a person has had or is having the disease based on antigens in his blood.
“The new protocol is for rapid antigen testing in 71 clusters across the state including Tura and other parts of Garo Hills. Focus of the tests will be on clusters having a large population, including Tura, Rongram, Garobadha and other towns,” said Singh as he added that this new method will lift the strain on the RT-PCR testing module.
The deputy commissioner pointed out that the laboratory at Tura civil hospital conducting the RT-PCR tests was overwhelmed with the huge number of tests being carried out.
“The number of RT-CPR tests at the lab is so high it was putting a heavy strain. We have almost 300 pending tests still to be conducted by the RT-PCR machine,” revealed Ram Singh.