Should India Change It's Coronavirus Test Conducting Strategy?

The World Health Organization wants India to test “aggressively” for COVID-19 while the government continues to test “selectively” because, as per Indian officials,  the outbreak is still in Stage 2. “More clusters of virus transmission are being confirmed. While this is an indication of alert and effective surveillance, it also puts the spotlight on the need for more aggressive and whole of society efforts to prevent further spread of COVID-19. We clearly need to do more, and urgently” Poonam Khetrapal Singh, regional director, WHO South-East Asian region said in a media statement. However, the call for aggressive testing has been contested by Indian officials arguing that “the pandemic is still in Stage 2 in the world’s 2nd most populous country with no evidence yet of any community transmission.” The officials stated that the strategy of Universal testing could create more “fear, panic reaction and hype” in India even though such a strategy was necessary for countries like UK and Italy. The ICMR says it has found no positive case of coronavirus in 500 randomly collected samples of respiratory disease patients in ICUs. However, the real question is – What is the appropriate sample size for a country of 1.3 Billion people? In our country, where people who have been tested positive, are trying to run away from quarantine facilities, where people are travelling making use of their parents’ influence-how can you be sure that everyone who has it will be tested? While the airports are screening people for high temperature as a symptom, “smart” individuals are taking pills to reduce the temperature so as to skip the quarantine- is “selective” testing actually the right path? The officials seem to be obsessed with the stages of transmission. They have decided it is “Stage 2” and they won’t scale up testing for “Stage 3”. Imagine the situation where even one of the patients (who actually came for testing. Not even considering the “smart” people trying to skip quarantine.) being returned has coronavirus. He could be spreading it without knowledge and not taking any precautions at all! India should rather learn from the countries which have already committed the mistake of taking it “lightly”.  The reason that United States is seeing an exponential rise in the number of cases is that it didn’t take testing seriously. Then there are countries like Turkey that have actually been able to contain, mitigate or delay the spread by scaling up testing. As the number of cases rise with number of deaths almost going to touch a double- digit number, “social distancing” or “lockdown” will be beneficial only when people are actually tested-the gravity of the situation is understood in its real sense. Indian officials really need to get over the obsession of “Stage 2” and get going to actually prevent from reaching “Stage 3”. Yes, the costs of testing will be huge challenge for the Indian healthcare which is already crying for more resources. Isn’t saving human lives more important than maintaining the government’s treasure?

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