Kolkata: At over 19,000 Covid tests per million, West Bengal remains far from catching up with the national average as well as its neighbours. The state is lagging behind by around 8,000 tests per million from the national average of 27,000.
According to Union health ministry data on 21 August, India has been conducting 580 tests per day per million population, while Bengal remains far behind at 365 tests, and figured in the bottom five states in terms of testing per day.
Testing in India has steeply increased to more than 9 lakh tests per day.
This is bolstered with all States/UTs testing more than 140 tests/day/million population as advised by @WHO. pic.twitter.com/Emmq64AH0u
— Ministry of Health (@MoHFW_INDIA) August 21, 2020
Assam and Odisha with much lower population than Bengal are testing two to three times higher at 59,348 per million population and 34,000, respectively, according to the states’ data. Bihar, which has almost the same population as Bengal, is testing at 28,000 per million population.
The Mamata Banerjee government, however, said the testing figures have gone up in the state from what it was earlier this month.
But experts said it’s unfortunate that Bengal still hasn’t come up with a robust Covid testing infrastructure and such low testing is maximising the chances of infection.
Also read: Bengal Covid cases double in just 3 weeks, Mamata govt says it’s natural progression of virus
‘Have doubled Covid testing this month’
A senior health department official, who didn’t want to be named, told ThePrint the initial reason for low testing was the inadequate number of testing labs.
“The initial issue was with the number of testing labs. We got slow approval. At present, we have 70 labs running. Some of our approvals are still pending,” he said.
“We are augmenting the numbers. We have ordered RT-PCR machines to increase the numbers. In fact, we have doubled the numbers this month. On 1 August, we were testing 20,065 samples per day and yesterday (Thursday), we tested 42,474 per day,” the official added.
Meanwhile, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation last week launched ‘free of cost antigen tests at your doorstep’. State Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim announced about the facility on Twitter.
To avail of the facility, a housing complex must provide a KMC lab technician an AC room, where a minimum of 20 people should be available for testing.
Testing & tracking of #COVID19 is key in curbing its transmission & Rapid Antigen testing is the need of the hour
KMC is providing FREE OF COST Rapid Antigen testing at your doorstep!
More info in image below#KMCFightsCorona #BengalFightsCorona pic.twitter.com/plb87NZ9Zf
— FIRHAD HAKIM (@FirhadHakim) August 22, 2020
Bengal lowest among its neighbours
Although Bengal has ramped up its testing this month, it is far behind its neighbours.
As on 21 August, Bengal was testing 365 per million per day, while Bihar was conducting 408 tests per day and Assam was doing 819 tests. Odisha ranked second in India after Goa at 1,265 per million per day tests, the central government data showed.
The health bulletin of Bengal’s neighbouring states showed that they are far ahead in terms of testing of total samples too.
The Bengal government bulletin issued on 27 August stated that the state tested 17,16,607 samples in total, including 42,474 tests in the last 24 hours, at 19,073 tests per million population.
According to Assam government data on 25 August, the state tested a total of 20,71,441 samples. Bihar, according to its bulletin on 27 August, tested 27,77,160 samples.
Odisha, whose population is much lower than Bengal, tested 14,85,167 samples until 25 August.
Also read: Covid recovery rate in Bengal dips sharply in last 2 weeks, experts unable to find reason
‘Bengal ticking Covid indices wrong way’
Experts said that the government lacks courage and resolve to intensify testing as it knows that the state will then be flooded with cases.
Dr Amitabha Nandi, a veteran epidemiologist and public health expert, said, “I do not believe in the theory called tests per million (population). We are five months into the lockdown and the pandemic. The government in Bengal is yet to create an infrastructure for easy testing.
“We are still facing unavailability of slots. Why so? Anybody who wants to get tested, should be tested immediately. But here, our patients, despite having prescriptions, running from one centre to another for slots. This is unacceptable. It is no rocket science for anyone to understand that low testing maximises the chances of high infection,” he said.
ThePrint in July had reported how suspected Covid patients with prescriptions were struggling to find a slot, which translated into delayed treatment for those who eventually tested positive.
Dr Nandi said that Bengal being the fourth most populous state should have been careful.
“If not RT-PCR or other technology, the government should at least be prepared to conduct rapid antigens tests. That is a cheap methodology. All other states, which are reporting higher numbers of cases, test at least three to four times more than us.”
Noted virologist Dr Nimai Bhattacharya said Bengal is ticking “all important Covid indices in the wrong way”.
“Infection rate is higher than the national average, per million tests are much lower than the national average. We tick all important Covid indices in the wrong way,” he added.
‘State should increase the number of antigen tests’
West Bengal has 70 Covid testing laboratories approved by the ICMR. Of the 70 labs, 38 have RT-PCR testing facilities, while rest conduct tests on TRUENAT or CBNAAT.
The state government has said that CBNAAT and TRUENAT machines can conduct only 32 and 16 tests per day, respectively.
That is why the state is heavily dependent on RT-PCR machines, which can conduct 200-300 or more tests.
Of the total 17,16,607 samples tested so far, 3,17,271 were antigen tests, and the remaining were done via RT-PCR, TRUENAT and CBNAAT.
“If not RT-PCR, the state should increase the number of antigen tests. It is all about standardising a kit. And no method is fully sensitive to the samples. It’s better than nothing,” said Dr Bhattacharya.
Also read: Covid-dengue ‘co-infections’ are Bengal’s new challenge as doctors say treatment very tricky
My father aged 67 was tested on 18th sep 2020 and today is 24th sep 2020 and there is no trace of report. Now he is on oxygen support in private facility. Very poor condition of the infrastructure. Shame this government.
The recovery rate is above 80% in Bengal.That fact also should have been highlighted in the article
If you test say 100 people in May and then systematically reduce testing out of those 100 eventually 98 will recover eventually – now 80% is abjectly poor if that’s a true figure since WB isn’t testing enough.