Visakhapatnam receives 6,000 Rapid Antigen kits for COVID-19 testing

Earlier this month, Visakhapatnam District Collector V Vinay Chand announced that Vizag authorities must take an aggressive route for testing people for containing COVID-19. In this regard, Mr Chand, on Saturday, conducted a comprehensive meeting at Andhra Medical College to speak about the government’s COVID-19 testing strategy. In the meeting that was attended by Superintendents and Nodal Officers, the Collector appraised the use of Rapid Antigen Kits for strengthening testing to diagnose COVID-19 in Visakhapatnam.

In the meeting, Collector V Vinay Chand stated that Visakhapatnam has received 6,000 of the RAT kits so far, and will receive a few thousands more in the coming days. The newly received kits will be made available at all Andhra Medical College’s peripheral hospitals including Government ENT Hospital, Regional Hospital, Government Hospital for Chest and Communicable Diseases, Government Hospital for Mental Care among others. The idea behind spreading the kits across all hospitals is to both ease the pressure on Government Chest Hospital, and enable rapid testing for COVID-19 at multiple hospitals in Visakhapatnam, said District Collector V Vinay Chand. The top officer also listened to the concerns and feedback given by the Superintendents during the meeting.

As of 11 July 2020, a total of 997 COVID-19 active cases have been registered in Visakhapatnam. While 1002 of the total 2078 patients have been discharged, the district registered 22 deaths. 66 new cases have been registered in Visakhapatnam over the last twenty-four hours. Seven patients, unfortunately, succumbed to death in the district. The local authorities, in a bid to control the spread of the virus, have named three new areas as containment clusters. Tekkapalem – Sabbavaram, Old Karasa Roa IV, Shantinagar – Kailasapuram are the newly named containment zones in the district. Currently, there are 84 ‘Very Active’ clusters, 190 ‘Active’ Clusters and 99 ‘Dormant’ clusters. 39 localities have been denotified as per the containment cluster status on Saturday.