As the West Bengal government confirmed three more deaths due to COVID-19 on Tuesday, taking the the toll in the State to 15, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee visited several parts of Kolkata along with senior officials of the police, urging residents not to leave their homes.
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Driving through the streets in a police van, Ms Banerjee used a mic to urge people to stay home for the next 10 days as cases of infections had been reported from several wards and areas.
“I am aware that you are facing lot of problems. There is nothing to fear. But remain inside your homes for the next 10 days,” the Chief Minister said.
Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha said, “The number of active cases in the State has increased to 274 with 29 cases recorded in the past 24 hours.”
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He also said the State has significantly increased the number of samples being tested.
“We had tested 713 samples in the past 24 hours. The total number of samples tested is 6,182,” he added. Prior to this the State was testing 400 samples a day.
Two new testing centres RG Kar Hospital and Medical College and Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute ( CNCI) have been made operational taking the total number of testing centers in the State to 12.
NICED withdraws kits
Meanwhile, National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Disease ( NICED) said it has received instruction from Indian Council of Medical Research ( ICMR) not to distribute faulty kits and instead only distribute kits assembled by the NIV (National Institute of Virology), Pune.
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The Hindu had reported on Monday that NICED authorities had admitted that the testing kits being distributed in West Bengal had developed some problems. The West Bengal Health Department had complained that certain kits provided by NICED were returning inconclusive results, leading to repeat testing and delay in getting the results.
“The kits have lost their activity due to problem in storage temperatures, may be at the medical college level or during transportation,” Shanta Dutta, Director of NICED told The Hindu on Tuesday. She added that the RT–PCR kits are required to be to be kept -20 degrees C.
“This is not the right time do all this blame game,” Dr Dutta said, adding that in the view of such circumstances, ICMR has instructed NICED to supply NIV assembled kits. The State’s Heath Department also said it has started rapid antibody tests which were conducted in Howrah and Kolkata. While no sample tested positive in Howrah, two samples tested positive in Kolkata on Monday.
