Alarmed by the rising number of Covid-19 cases and casualties, Union Health Ministry on Monday has finally touched an important aspect that is being repeatedly asked for by the virology experts. It has now been decided that a systematic surveillance mechanism for ascertaining SARS-CoV-2 infection in all districts of country will be put into effect which will be concurrent to the routine testing efforts. Evaluating the step in the light of ‘whims and fancies’ of the lethal virus, it should be said that in the current Indian context, it was highly required, but has come late.
As a part of it, irrespective of colour-based zone-wise classification of districts, with the aim of monitoring the trends in respect to prevalence of Covid-19 infection, 50 pregnant women, 50 patients without respiratory symptoms and 100 healthcare workers from six government and four private hospitals will be tested each week in every district. Gathering inputs from the Union Health Ministry’s official website, it can be found that the surveillance would initially involve  standard viral diagnostic test based on throat/nasal swab sample collection and will be upscaled subsequently to rapid antibody tests. Looking beyond these technicalities, the crux of this new initiative is that it will put into effect the much-needed filtering mechanism that will take care of a very fundamental aspect of the containment efforts, which is to bring under radar the mild or asymptomatic cases. It should be remembered that so far, the current national guidelines have stressed on testing patients only with severe acute respiratory or influenza-like illness. But, looking over the global response pattern to the pandemic, it can be said with emphasis that an effective and time-bound population surveillance in low-risk groups such as pregnant women or patients visiting hospitals for their routine health causes without having any specific non-respiratory illnesses is also an inseparable part of the overall objective which is to outsmart the pandemic in a far-reaching manner. India has been a late responder on many fronts of the fight and among all, testing will be on forefront. The test kit fiasco has done much harm and even if the district-wise surveillance plan has finally been announced, many experts are of the opinion that it should have been rolled out on early April.
Tuesday night’s PM’s address to the nation, meanwhile, contained the much-needed and awaited special economic package announcement of Rs 20 lakh crore which is 10 % of national GDP, the target beneficiaries being “labourers, farmers, honest taxpayers, MSMEs and cottage industry” and that the nation is manufacturing “two lakh PPE kits & two lakh N95 masks daily.” 
‘Balms’ are coming at last. But isn’t it that they should have been prescribed a bit earlier? Nevertheless, it’s better late than never. 

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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