AP govt imports 1 lakh COVID-19 testing kits from South Korea

Amaravati(AP), Apr 17 () The Andhra Pradesh governmenton Friday imported one lakh rapid test kits (RTKs) from SouthKorea to step up Covid-19 testing in the state.

The AP government chartered a special flight to importthe RTKs from Seoul directly to Vijayawada airport.

The kits, manufactured by SD Biosensor of South Korea,were presented to Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy at ahigh-level review meeting on Covid-19 at his camp office onFriday.

With the use of RTKs, the result could be obtained injust 10 minutes on whether or not a person carried the virus.

The state government placed an order for a total of onemillion RTKs and the first batch of one lakh kits wasdelivered on Friday.

The kits will be dispatched to all 13 districts in thenext three days and doctors and other medical staff will betrained in their usage before they are put to actual use in aweek.

With the arrival of one lakh RTKs, the government nowseeks to ramp up testing of Corona cases to 17,000 per day bynext week, Special Chief Secretary (Health) K S Jawahar Reddysaid.

"We started with 90 tests per day on February 15, withjust one lab in the state. Now, with seven VRDL facilities,the testing capacity has gone up to 3,000 per day.

With RTKs and TruNat machines, the testing capacity willincrease to 17,000 a day in a week," Reddy told reporters.

The Medical and Health Department is also going in forpooled sample testing, wherein one sample could determine thecondition of five people.

"The ICMR has suggested this method where 100 tests willgive the result of 500 people. We are initially doing thepooled sample testing in Vijayawada city," the Special CSsaid.

As part of community surveillance measures, (blood)sample collection, tracking and results would all be monitoredonline through a new MIS module.

In the door-to-door 'Syndromic Survey' conducted by Ashaworkers and ANMs recently, over 32,000 people were found tohave symptoms for Covid-19.

"In the next seven days, we will complete testing of allthese 32,700 people," Jawahar Reddy said. DBVROH ROH