News: Bihar: 26% samples of migrant workers who returned from Delhi tested positive for covid-19-18-05-2020
Updated On: May 18, 2020
Bihar: 26% samples of migrant workers who returned from Delhi tested positive for covid-19
PATNA: Around 26% samples of migrant workers, who returned to the state from Delhi, have been tested positive for Covid-19.
Altogether, 23,633 migrant workers from Delhi returned the state in 18 trains till Sunday evening, the disaster management department (DMD) principal secretary Pratyay Amrit told TOI.
According to a data released by the health department’s principal secretary Sanjay Kumar on Monday, the health officials randomly collected samples of 1,362 those migrant workers who returned from Delhi.
Of the 1,362 samples, testing process of 835 samples is completed and their results are out. Of these, 835 tested migrant workers, 218 (around 26%) have been found positive for Covid-19. Other 616 sample were tested negative for
Covid-19, while result of one sample is undecided. The remaining 527 samples of Delhi migrant workers are under process of testing.
Similarly, 12% of tested migrant workers from West Bengal, 11% from Maharashtra and 9% from Haryana have been found positive for Covid-19.
But the ratio of Covid-19 infection gets changed in the migrant workers who have arrived from southern states like Kerala, Telangana and Karnataka.
“Only 2% of tested migrant workers who returned from Kerala and Telangana each, have been fund positive for covid-19. Similarly, only 3% of the tested migrant workers from Karnataka have been found positive,” the data released by Sanjay Kumar reveals.
“The change in the ratio of infection shows that the migrant workers who have returned from highly-infected states like Delhi and West Bengal have high percentage of chances of infection,” a health official said.
As per as the data of migrant workers from all states is concerned, an average 8% tested workers have been found positive for Covid-19.
As per another data provided by the DMD, around 7.4 lakh migrant workers from different states returned Bihar till Sunday late evening.
Out of 7.4 lakh migrant workers, the state health officials randomly collected samples from 11,800 returnees. Of them, the testing process of 8,337 samples is completed and their results are available. Altogether 651 or around 8% of the 8,337 samples tested so far have been found positive for the infection.
As the positive cases of Covid-19 are rising day-by-day in the state, the state government led by CM Nitish Kumar has planned to scale up its testing facility to break the chain of deadly disease.
A few days back, CM Nitish Kumar asked health department officials to ensure around 1,000 testing for Covid-19 per day. Seven government-run medical institutions in Bihar are currently testing average 2,000 samples per day. On May 17, a total of 2,024 samples tested at these seven facilities.
Health department’s principal secretary Sanjay Kumar told TOI on Monday that his department has chalked out a plan to scale up testing facilities even at the district level hospitals in next few days. “Bihar will soon get 80 Truenat machines from the Centre. Soon after getting these machines, we will start testing at selected district level hospitals,” he said.
