Sajid Raina
Bandipora, Apr 28 : Authorities has begun testing people through rapid antibody test kits in all red zones of North Kashmir’s Bandipora district. At least 400 tests were conducted in last few days on randomly picked people from mostly two red zones.
An official told news agency, that the admin has started rapid testing for the COVID-19 infection with the help of rapid antibody testing kits in Gund-Jahangeer and Gund-Qaiser, dozens patients have been found in these two villages so far.
“We will monitor everyone who have been asked to self quarantine and also seal areas that see a spike in cases to reduce the spread,” he said. “Aggressive random sampling will give a fair idea on the COVID-19 incidence in red zones and will help formulation of strategies accordingly. This will help identify asymptomatic cases and also determine spread or lack of it at the community level.”
The official said that all persons having cough, cold, mild fever or sore throat from such locations will thus be subjected to rapid antibody tests. He said that now patients would not need to go to hospitals to provide samples and it will also help in testing a large number of samples in a short period of time.
Sources said that Covid-19 test done on 700 random samples of patients with symptoms of severe chest infection have turned out to be negative in different Red zones of the district.
Extensive Covid Health Audit is underway in the district by Booth Area level Group (BAG) Team using Swathya Nidhi Mobile Application. So far 282534 persons of 49827 House Holds were screened.
In the District 1645 cases were sampled out of which 127 cases have been found positive, 1302 cases as negative and 216 tests are awaited.
Pertinently Bandipora is the first district in Jammu and Kashmir to have the highest number of Covid-19 patients—(KNO)
