Doctors appeal TN CM K Palaniswamy to increase COVID-19 testing drastically

As this metropolis struggles with over 22,000 coronavirus patients, two doctors, including the man behind Tamil Nadu’s organ donation system, on Monday launched a petition asking the government to “drastically increase testing” across the state and ensure strict enforcing of wearing of masks by people.

Dr J Amalorpavanathan, former member-secretary of Transplant Authority of Tamil Nadu, and Dr Sumanth C Raman, an Internal Medicine consultant and political commentator, launched the petition on www.change.org, on Monday, which had received over 500 signatories at the time of writing.

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Both Amalorpavanathan and Sumanth Raman have been stressing the need for ramping up of testing numbers in Tamil Nadu, especially in Chennai, for the past few weeks as the number of positive cases is steadily increasing.

Tamil Nadu tests anywhere between 12,000 to 16,000 samples a day with over 4,000 in Chennai alone, but experts feel the number is “very less” as there is “wide-spread” community transmission in the city, though the government denies it.

The doctors highlighted 12 points that need the immediate attention of the Tamil Nadu government like testing of all symptomatic patients irrespective of the duration of symptoms, all immediate and high-risk contacts of positive patients and all high-risk people like health care staff, police and media, and going beyond the ICMR guidelines and test asymptomatic persons in the cluster dense zones for source location.

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“(The government should) drastically increase testing in Chennai and the rest of the state to the levels recommended by the medical experts. This initially must at least be by a magnitude of 4-5 times the current testing levels in Chennai. Sample collection centres in Chennai can be drastically increased to help boost testing. Pooled testing can be started. Some states are already doing this,” they said in the petition, addressed to Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami.

Dr Amalorpavanathan told DH that the testing numbers should be ramped up big time as it is necessary to identify the source with the city alone recording over 1,000 cases every day. “It is necessary to test more and more people. Wuhan city tested all its citizens when they feared a second outbreak. It is a very costly affair and a difficult task to test lakhs of people, but it is absolutely necessary,” he said.

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Dr Sumanth Raman said the cost incurred in conducting 40,000 tests a day in the state for the next two months would be just a fraction of the impact that the economy has been subjected to since the outbreak. “The government should set up kiosks in every ward in Chennai for people to come and get tested. This is absolutely necessary to contain the spread of the virus,” he told DH.

The duo also asked the government to ensure that police enforce the wearing of face masks in public and arrange to distribute cloth masks free through the PDS, while appealing to it to publish the number of patients in ICU and those on Ventilator in the daily reports issued by Health Department.

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The doctors also asked the government to issue strict orders that the WHO definition of COVID-19 death is to be followed when certifying death. “That will help us get accurate data on the number of COVID-19 deaths and for research. There are reports of patients dying of breathlessness before reaching hospital. They must also be tested after death and their contacts traced,” they said.

Dr Amalorpavanathan and Dr Sumanth Raman also asked the government to make available Pulse Oximeter and Portable Oxygen Canisters to people on demand and at reasonable costs. They also asked the government to start the surveillance testing for disease prevalence using the rapid antibody tests as advised by the ICMR.