Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal issued an order on Monday directing the state government to test asymptomatic direct and high-risk co...
Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal issued an order on Monday directing the state government to test asymptomatic direct and high-risk contacts of confirmed cases of the coronavirus, saying that not doing so was a violation of the guidelines issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research.
On June 2, the Delhi government, unveiling its testing strategy for Covid-19, ruled out tests for asymptomatic contacts of confirmed patients. “This deviation in the ICMR guidelines can result in inadequate contact tracing of affected individuals and can result in further spread of Covid-19 in NCT of Delhi,” Baijal said in his order.
Delhi is one of the worst-affected regions in the country. Till Monday evening, it had reported 29,943 infections, including 874 deaths.
Clause 5 of the ICMR’s May 18 testing strategy says “asymptomatic direct and high-risk contacts of a confirmed case to be tested once between Day 5 and Day 10 of coming into contact”. However, the Director General of Health Services (Delhi) removed the word “asymptomatic” from its order of June 2, The Indian Express reported. It specified that the only direct and high-risk contacts who will be eligible for testing will include diabetics, patients of hypertension, cancer or senior citizens.
Monday’s order from the Delhi Disaster Management Authority,...
