With COVID-19 tests rising in Bengal, results getting delayed: officials

As the number of tests to confirm whether one is infected by novel coronavirus has increased manifold in West Bengal, results are also getting delayed under pressure, raising the chances of its transmission, officials of state health department said on Monday. Sample tests have been conducted in the state on war footing and with migrant labourers returning to West Bengal, such clinical examinations have been expedited, they said.

Currently, there are 41 laboratories in West Bengal involved in conducting tests of samples to determine COVID-19 infection. "The number of tests to determine COVID-19 infection has gone up manifold in laboratories across the state. Tests are conducted on symptomatic as well as asymptomatic people.

Besides, tests are conducted on migrant labourers who are returning in large numbers, an official said. After the results come, they are matched with the lists of people on whom the tests were conducted and then submitted to the state health department, the official said.

"As a large number of tests are conducted, many cases could not be matched and uploaded by the data entry operators. And this has led to delay in getting the results of the tests, thereby raising the chances of transmission of the virus," he said.

In May alone, samples of over 1.8 lakh have been conducted in West Bengal. Instructions have been sent to the laboratories to give the data entry operators a daily target of uploading the test results to cut down on the number of cases, the results of which are not uploaded, the official added.

West Bengal till Monday has a total of 5,772 confirmed COVID-19 cases, the health department bulletin said. At the moment, there are 17,037 people in government quarantine centres and the total number of people in home quarantine is 1,44,678, it added.

The death toll due to coronavirus infection in the state is 253. Seventy-two patients have also died due to comorbid conditions, and COVID- 19 in those cases was "incidental".

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)