Despite Centre’s advisory amid a spike in COVID-19 cases in India, testing rate in states remain low.
Experts today said that while mass testing may not be practical looking at the logistics, it may help understand the exact cause of the respiratory illnesses currently seen across the country.
According to union health ministry data, India recorded a single-day rise of 628 new COVID-19 cases while the active caseload jumped to 4,054. The total fatalities were recorded at 5,33,334 with one new death reported from Kerala in the previous 24 hours, the data updated at 8 a.m. showed.
As per a recent survey conducted by LocalCircles, only 1 in 9 Indians with COVID-19 symptoms are taking a RT-PCR test.
It noted that due to this India runs the risk of late identification of JN.1 variant in communities which can be an issue if it is causing severe disease in some people.
“Testing is not commonly done at all in India, because of many reasons. One, the public appears to think that the pandemic has gone away completely and will not come back. A good percentage of doctors also appear to believe that as well,” Dr Rajeev Jayadevan, co-chairman of the National Indian Medical Association Covid Task Force Said.
“Secondly, COVID-19 is no longer perceived as a threat as it used to be after vaccination covered most of the country, the severity of the disease came down significantly,” he added.
Moreover, the variants have changed to Omicron, hence the death rate has dropped. Therefore, people feel that testing might not make a difference in the treatment or the outcome.
In addition, even as many patients come in with symptoms of cold and fever to hospitals, it is impractical to send everybody for a COVID-19 test besides the expense, the doctor said.
“Yet the downside of not testing is that we will not know the exact cause of the respiratory illnesses that are happening. The knowledge of which can help us customise treatment and prevention protocols. Without testing, we are effectively flying blind,” Dr Jayadevan said.