Covid-19: Telangana government fails to rise to the occasion

Hyderabad: Though the state government claims that Telangana was one of the few states to wake up first and create necessary health infrastructure and that it had effectively handled COVID-19 situation, the fact remains that it has been badly lacking in conducting tests on a large-scale.

Statistics indicate that Telangana was far behind smaller states like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand and even the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh in conducting tests. Even the decision of conducting 50,000 tests in five days did not seem to have taken place owing to lack of facilities and the drive continues even in July. The number of tests per 10,000 persons stood at 24 and remains amongst the lowest despite being technologically advanced. "With the existing capacity, the State was able to test only between 3,000 to 4,000 samples with all out efforts during the drive's peak," sources informed.

One of the reasons cited is the lack of public cooperation, who out of fear and myths surrounding the COVID-19 failed to turn up. Rumours like being exposed to the virus at hospitals also contributed to the low turnout at the centers.

As per the latest figures available, Telangana is yet to cross 1 lakh tests (92,797), while AP has already conducted tests of 9.18 lakhs. It stood way behind new states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand which conducted tests of over 1.63 lakhs and 1.47 lakhs, respectively, by July 1.

According to available data, Jammu & Kashmir and Delhi conducted tests on 3% and 2.83% of the population, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra took maximum samples for testing with over 12 lakhs and close to 10 lakhs, respectively, while Telangana stood at 20th position in terms of samples tested with 92,797 from an estimated population of 3.86 crore.

 Out of these samples, till now 18.70% tested positive, which remains the highest, while that of AP is 1.66 %. Currently, the State government has facilities of testing up to 5,500 samples mostly situated in centers in Hyderabad. These include Gandhi Medical College, Osmania Medical College, Fever Hospital, Institute of Preventive Medicine, Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences, Kakatiya Medical College, Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, ESIC Medical College, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences and Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology and Sir Ronald Ross Institute of Tropical and Communicable Diseases. The medical authorities will be upgrading the facilities in Nalgonda, Siddipet, Nizamabad and other locations for testing in the coming days, which can add up 1,100 more tests. Besides these, several private labs are authorized for testing.