Chennai: The Tamilnadu government has now turned its focus on “aggressive testing” and has decided to rope in the private sector also.
Health Secretary Beela Rajesh said the private sector has fixed a price for testing the samples and that Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami has announced the government will bear all the expenses. “Our strategy is aggressive testing now,” she said.
According to reports, private sector has fixed a rate of ₹4,500 for testing a COVID-19 sample. On Sunday, 49 new cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) were reported, with two of them testing positive for coronavirus, she said.
Tirupur in the State recorded 35 new positive cases on Sunday followed by Coimbatore (22) and Chennai with 18 cases. The State capital topped the number of cases with 199, followed by Coimbatore at 119.
Beela Rajesh said the State was well-stocked with testing kits and said the rapid testing kits, that were supposed to arrive on Thursday night, were an additional tool and not essential for testing.
“Rapid test is a screening tool used during epidemics, it is not a confirmatory tool,” she distinguished. “We have enough RNA testing and PCR kits and will get 90,000 more kits by this week,” she said.