Asymptomatic to be tested on demand

Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 4

With growing caseload and evidence of asymptomatic people carrying the disease, the government today approved testing on demand, expanding the Covid testing protocol to include the asymptomatic in defined settings.

Read also: No posters to be affixed outside homes of patients in Punjab 

Punjab told to snap virus chain in Ludhiana, Patiala

Ludhiana and Patiala are among the 15 districts across five states showing higher active caseload, fatality rate and a surge in Covid cases for the past four weeks. The Centre has asked Punjab and the other four states to break the transmission chain.

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The authorities issued an advisory allowing testing for anyone who wishes so and mandating a negative Covid-19 test at entry point for individuals undertaking travel to countries and Indian states. “States can work out simplified modalities for the same,” the advisory said.

In hospital settings, testing would need to be done not just on patients of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection, but also asymptomatic high-risk patients in hospital — immunocompromised individuals, those with a malignant disease, transplant patients, those with chronic co-morbidities and the elderly over 65 years — along with asymptomatic patients undergoing surgical or non-surgical invasive procedures.