Telangana: COVID testing stalled for 2 days to clear backlog

Hyderabad: Telangana health department authorities on June 25, announced that COVID test will be stalled for 2 days to clear the pending backlog. 'To clear testing of the pending samples and to sanitise the health camps, collection of samples at the camps would be stalled for two days, beginning 25th June. However, tests will conducted as usual at the Covid hospitals in the state' authorities said .

This comes after, the state for three straight days, reported 800 plus new Covid-19 cases, every 24 hours. In just 9 days, the state recorded a hike in cases from 5,000 to 10,000 positive cases.

Hyderabad, the capital city of the state, continues to be the hotspot and stands in 7^th place in the country with 7,596 confirmed Corona cases in the GHMC limits. Telangana stands in 12th place in the country crossing the 10,000 mark.

Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao has decided to conduct 50,000 Covid-19 tests in every Assembly constituency in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits. Accordingly, health camps would be conducted under the supervision of health minister Eatala Rajender and tests would be conducted to all those having symptoms of the infection.

Since June 16, as many as 36,000 samples were collected. Of them, 8,253 are pending in various labs. Any sample has to be tested before 48 hours of collecting it. The samples would be stored at a specific temperature from the moment they are collected.

As a large number of samples got collected at the health camps, they should be tested first. Collecting more samples without conducting tests on the already collected ones will only give false reports when they are tested. The public have been urged to approach the hospitals for Corona tests in case of emergency.