Jharkhand tested only 911 samples so far

RANCHI: Jharkhand has, so far, detected only two Covid-19 patients — a Malaysian woman, who came to the city after taking part in the Tablighi Jamaat conclave in New Delhi, and a man from Hazaribag who returned from Asansol in West Bengal. However, the total number of tests for the virus till Saturday evening remained as low as 911, of which 181 results are pending; 727 have been declared negative while three are positive.According to reports, nearly 1.5 lakh migrant workers have returned to the state just before and after the lockdown starting from March 25.
Experts said though the fewer number of Covid-19 positive cases in the state is certainly a breather, the danger of several undetected and asymptomatic cases hiding among the state residents loom large.
Principal secretary (health) Nitin Madan Kulkarni said they were expecting more cases. “Earlier, we were testing 20 to 25 samples every day, but now, we are testing around 70-80 samples daily at the two authorised testing centres — Rims in Ranchi and MGM medical college in Jamshedpur — but still most of them are negative,” he said, adding, “We are not going by any hypothesis related to demography and environmental conditions, but trying to test as much samples as possible.”
According to the latest figures released by Union ministry of health and family welfare, Jharkhand is placed alongside Manipur with two positive cases, whereas only two other states – Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram — have reported one each. Meghalaya is the only state in the country which has no Covid-19 case, so far.
Commenting on the low numbers, Dr Pradip Bhattacharya, head of trauma, emergency and critical care at Rims, said geographically and demographically, Jharkhand is closer to Chhattisgarh than the northeastern states. “We cannot link either geography or demography with the spread of virus, but there is no doubt about the fact that we are testing very few samples,” he said. Earlier, tests were being carried out only at MGM as the machine required for testing samples was not available at Rims then.
“We are less connected to foreign countries as the number of people coming to Jharkhand from other nations is far less than metropolitan cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. Moreover, many people from states like Kerala and Karnataka work in the Gulf countries, making them more exposed to the virus in comparison to Jharkhand,” he said. Dr Bhattacharya pointed out that Jharkhand is a malaria endemic zone and many people in the state have been administered chloroquine as treatment. “This aspect of whether chloroquine act as a protection against Covid-19 is just a hypothesis now, even though frontline workers have started using it under strict guidelines. The medical fraternity should establish this hypothesis once the pandemic phase is over.”
ENT superspecialist with expertise in skull base, head and neck surgery, Dr Abhishek Kumar Ramadhin, also admitted that Jharkhand is an endemic zone for tuberculosis, malaria and dengue. “The virus responsible for dengue and Covid-19 are both RNA viruses and there is a bleak possibility that the person inflicted with RNA virus earlier might have developed some immunity to Covid-19 virus as well,” he said. Ramadhin, however, raised questions about the less number of tests conducted in state. “Around 1.5 lakh labourers from different parts of the country entered Jharkhand just before and after lockdown and they were not tested. Till date, we have conducted less than 1,000 tests, which indicates that there could be several hundred carriers of the virus who are asymptomatic,” he said.