Free Press Journal, Testing up by 19%, but experts say it's not enough

Mumbai: To curb the increasing corona cases in the city, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has increased their testing by 19 per cent over the last one month. Civic officials attributed this to an increase in testing facilities from 3,500 to 5,500 in July. However, health experts said BMC is still not doing enough testing.

The number of tests went up to 1,54,529 between June 19 and July 18 from 1,29,792 tests between May 19 and June 18.

Currently, BMC claims to have a testing capacity of 8,000 tests a day. The city on an average conducted 5,150 tests daily between June 19 and July 18, compared to 4,326 between May 19 and June 18. So far BMC has carried out 4.33 lakh tests so far, with a positive rate of 23.12 per cent. “With the procurement of 1 lakh rapid antigen kits that will deliver results in 30 minutes, the testing capacity has risen by around 2,000-2,500. On July 15, 7,070 were tested of which 1,320 were turned out positive, similarly for three instances more than 6,000 testings were conducted in Mumbai,” said an official.

Senior doctor treating Covid patients at the civic-run hospital said though testing has increased, it is not enough considering the population of a city like Mumbai. However, the civic body should consider the challenges to conduct such a large number of tests. The test is micro. “We are focusing on rapid testing kits to bring that pace. We should test around 20,000 samples daily. With BMC procuring rapid antigen kits, there will be a scope to increase the daily testing capacity to 10,000-15,000. This will help curtail the spread. Even western countries had to face many challenges,” he said.

Dr Shashank Joshi, a member of Maharashtra’s Covid-19 task-force said, Mumbai has increased its testing in the past two months, but it should be more than what is being done currently. “One has to consider that we do not have to test the whole population of Mumbai. We are doing a sero-surveillance test, where a larger population is being covered. Moreover, we have to concentrate on areas or wards where the doubling rate is low. Sero-surveillance will help test maximum population,” he said.

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