Though volume of tests has not increased, slight improvement is because of decrease in the number of positive cases
A family waits for their turn to get tested in Dadar on Friday. Pic/ Suresh Karkera
Although the number of COVID-19 tests has not increased much, the Test Positivity Rate (TPR) of the city has come down to 20 per cent, due to a slight decrease in tests returning positive. The TPR in June was 28 per cent.
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TPR indicates the number of positive patients among those tested. It is also an indicator of adequate testing. While the World Health Organization's (WHO) recommended TPR value is below 5 per cent, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has recommended that it be below 10 per cent.
From an average of 4,408 daily tests in June, the number has increased to 5,477 in the past 10 days, and the average daily cases have come down from 1,296 in June to 1,096 in July.
Between July 13 and July 22, 54,770 COVID-19 tests were conducted and 10,963 returned positive. The TPR for these numbers of 20.01 per cent. "Antigen tests being done by the BMC and private labs has helped increase the number of tests. BMC has also removed the need for a doctor's prescription to do a test to help increase testing," said an official from the BMC.
"BMC has tied up with six private labs for antigen tests. All high-risk contacts in quarantine are now tested before being sent home. All symptomatic contacts during door-to-door screening are also tested," said civic chief Iqbal Singh Chahal. Another BMC official said that health teams used to trace over 10 contacts per positive patient. The ratio was maintained in slums but as patients increased in buildings, it got difficult to trace more contacts. "Even if the number increases in buildings, most of them are asymptomatic. People get tested themselves," said Chanda Jadhav, assistant commissioner, A ward.
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