<p class="title">As the number of cases appear to be spiralling out of control, the government has announced it will increase the scope of its testing.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Commissioner Pankaj Pandey of the Department of Health and Family Welfare said that health officials will test every individual affected by Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) and Influenza-like illnesses (ILI) within new buffer zones.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Officials zeroed in on ILI on Wednesday, after a one-year-old boy in Kalaburagi with the illness was found to have Covid-19.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The incident triggered the emergence of one more Covid-19 case, when Patient 302 was disclosed on Thursday. The patient is a 23-year-old woman in Kalburagi, who is said to have been in contact with the boy.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Pandemic expert Dr Girdhar R Babu said that the state should ramp up its testing to the point of including anyone reporting a fever or respiratory problems. </p>.<p class="bodytext">“The silent districts and silent taluks, which have so far reported no cases are as risky as the ones which have hotspots in them,” Dr Babu said.</p>.<p class="bodytext"> “We must start setting up surveillance systems in every district or what we might see happen is that when the lockdown is lifted on May 3 for example, there will be a sharp jump in the numbers,” he explained. </p>.<p class="bodytext">He also pointed out that the government’s decision to start SARI testing was a wise one, because the timeline of the pandemic had shown that in whichever district the health officers had started testing for SARI, they had uncovered Covid-19 cases.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Minister S Suresh Kumar pointed out that the state’s Covid-19 positive index was 2.3% “This percentage is a result of 13,724 samples being tested, out of which 315 were confirmed as positive,’ he said.</p>
<p class="title">As the number of cases appear to be spiralling out of control, the government has announced it will increase the scope of its testing.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Commissioner Pankaj Pandey of the Department of Health and Family Welfare said that health officials will test every individual affected by Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) and Influenza-like illnesses (ILI) within new buffer zones.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Officials zeroed in on ILI on Wednesday, after a one-year-old boy in Kalaburagi with the illness was found to have Covid-19.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The incident triggered the emergence of one more Covid-19 case, when Patient 302 was disclosed on Thursday. The patient is a 23-year-old woman in Kalburagi, who is said to have been in contact with the boy.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Pandemic expert Dr Girdhar R Babu said that the state should ramp up its testing to the point of including anyone reporting a fever or respiratory problems. </p>.<p class="bodytext">“The silent districts and silent taluks, which have so far reported no cases are as risky as the ones which have hotspots in them,” Dr Babu said.</p>.<p class="bodytext"> “We must start setting up surveillance systems in every district or what we might see happen is that when the lockdown is lifted on May 3 for example, there will be a sharp jump in the numbers,” he explained. </p>.<p class="bodytext">He also pointed out that the government’s decision to start SARI testing was a wise one, because the timeline of the pandemic had shown that in whichever district the health officers had started testing for SARI, they had uncovered Covid-19 cases.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Minister S Suresh Kumar pointed out that the state’s Covid-19 positive index was 2.3% “This percentage is a result of 13,724 samples being tested, out of which 315 were confirmed as positive,’ he said.</p>