Nellore: Delay in conducting covid tests leading to wrong results

Nellore: Lack of common or systematic procedure in collecting samples and conducting tests in the district has become a bane for the corona suspect persons. Consequently, delay in conducting tests sometimes leading to false results. Manpower and equipment for tests also have to be improved as the cases are increasing rapidly.

AP's first positive case of the new Coronavirus was registered in Nellore when an Italy returnee was tested positive. At that time, there was no testing centre in the district and the samples were being sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, and subsequently a State Nodal Centre was started at Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences (SVIMS), Tirupati, for conducting tests under the supervision of the NIV.

Subsequently, the number of covid-19 positive cases has been increased due to interactions with the Delhi Tablighi meet participants and people who visited Chennai based Koyambedu Vegetable Market. Now, there are around 1,600 positive cases in the entire district by July 16.

There are testing facilities only in Nellore, Kavali, and Atmakur. As many as 1,500 tests are being conducted at the Viral Research and Diagnostic Laboratory (VRDL) located in ACSR Government Medical College, Nellore. Other 450 TrueNat tests are being done from Nellore, Kavali and Atmakur. Currently, the total capacity of the district to conduct corona tests is only around 2,000 and results of about 6,000 samples are pending as on July 15.

"Though there are proposals for arranging TrueNat laboratories in Gudur and Naidupet for avoiding delay, still the proposals haven't been materialised. The number of cases has been tripled and still the infrastructure is the same. So, testing wings are facing severe pressure for meeting the demand," said a senior official from the Medical and Health Department.The State Government has been announcing for the last couple of months doubling the testing capacity in the district, and still the proposals are in cold storage. Meanwhile, disturbances in the district administration also highly impacted the coordination. Further, delay in testing the samples are also giving adverse results many times.

Many patients are complaining about unexpected outcomes that normal people are being declared as positive patients. This has been due to a delay in conducting tests after collecting samples from the suspect cases.

Due to huge pressure, staff members are unable to conduct the tests on time. Failing to follow these guidelines of shifting the samples to the deep cold storage system after three-days has been leading to wrong results, experts say.