Public glee over negative RAT results creates room to fan virus
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, June 17 2021: With the state government heavily relying on Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) as the primary mode for detecting Covid-19 positive cases and isolating them, public satisfaction over receiving negative RAT results is inadvertently creating a backdoor for the virus to spread in the community making it next to impossible to break the transmission chain.

Quick results, low cost and versatility of RAT, which does not require any lab to test samples, are the main reasons why the government is relying on RAT even though RTPCR is the gold standard for Covid detection.

It is also useful in identifying positive cases swiftly and isolating them from the others but in the absence of follow up PCR based tests like RTPCR, TruNat and CBNAAT, it is becoming a major cause of concern.

In the second wave, there are reports of new mutants which are able to skip the RTPCR tests.

However, the number of RTPCR test is very low in the state.

What is even more disturbing is that the public seem to be satisfied with negative RAT results even if they show mild symptoms.

Instead of doubting the negative results of RAT, which the authority and health experts do not treat as a confirmatory negative result, there are still numerous people, who doubt the RAT results and get retest at private labs.

However, only a handful of people with mild symptoms get RTPCR or TruNat retest when they get negative results on RAT.

This satisfaction on the part of the public and failure of the government authority to insist on confirmatory RTPCR test has been playing a major role in further transmission of the virus.

Recently, the district administration of Imphal West carried out aggressive mass testing in different localities of the district to identify positive cases and isolate them to break the transmission chain.

Despite having a target for aggressive testing among the people, the initiative was not able to cover the entire localities in the district.

Moreover, response from the public was poor and only a fraction of the total population of the district came forward for testing.

As per Aadhaar data on February 2019, Imphal West has an estimated population of 5,44,000.The mass testing drive held from June 1 to 17 got response from only 27,313 people and 1653 positive results were detected.

In other word, only 5.02 per cent of the total population of the district came out for voluntary testing but 6.05 per cent of them were found positive for Covid-19.The lukewarm response from the public made the mass testing less effective.

Besides, there is no surety that all the negative results are not affected by the virus as several people, who got negative results during the mass testing drive, got retested through RTPCR and many of their samples returned positive.

Yet, there are also several people with mild symptoms, who remain satisfied with RAT negative results and do not want any further retest.

On the other hand, sources said that the major reason for the poor turnout during the mass testing was that only one or two members from a family came out in many of the testing sites to get their samples tested.

According to a member of a local Covid Task Force in Imphal West district, testing samples of only one member from the entire family has a serious loophole as such procedure has the potential to miss out actual positive cases in the community.

He recalled how a mason in his locality, who go to work even during the restrictions, got negative result and his remaining family members, who always stay at home, were found positive for the infectious disease.

Even if there is shortfall in testing kit and financial issue to test all, it would be better if the authority tests at least half of the family members to get a clearer status, he suggested.

Meanwhile, local clubs in some localities made it mandatory for those in rents to come out for mass testing while leaving aside the local people.

As a result, many of the local residents missed the mass testing, thus giving higher chances of further spread of the infectious virus in the community, sources noted.

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