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A per the guidelines issued by the ICMR as well as the Union Health Ministry, it has been stated that RT-PCR test must necessarily be conducted for the persons falling under the two specific categories i.e. the symptomatic (fever or cough or breathlessness) negative cases of Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) and all the asymptomatic negative cases of RAT that develop symptoms within 2 to 3 days of being tested negative.
The Centre said that it has noted, in some large States, symptomatic negative cases tested by Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) are not being followed up by RT-PCT testing.
In a statement issued earlier today, the ministry said, "In this background, the Union Health Ministry and ICMR have jointly written to all the states and UTs and urged them to ensure that the all symptomatic negative cases of RAT are mandatorily retested using the RT-PCR test."
"This is necessary to ensure that such symptomatic negative cases do not remain untested and do not spread the disease among their contacts," the health ministry added.
The ministry said that this will ensure early detection and isolation/hospitalization of such false negatives. It has also been reiterated in the joint letter that while the RAT is being used to increase access and availability of testing in the field, RT-PCR remains the gold standard of COVID tests.
Meanwhile, the government has urged the states and UTs to establish a monitoring mechanism in every district (a designated officer or a team) and at the State level to follow up such cases.
As per the latest development, these teams shall analyse details of RAT conducted on a daily basis in the Districts and State and ensure that there are no delays in retesting of all symptomatic negative cases.
"The aim of states and UTs should be to ensure that no potentially positive case is missed out. They have also been advised to undertake an analysis on a regular basis to monitor the incidence of positives during the RT-PCR tests conducted as a follow up," the ministry stated.
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The request by the central health department has come at the time when country recorded a single day spike of 95,735 infections, pushing the COVID-19 tally to 44,65,863.
As per the latest updates, a total of 75,062 people have lost lives due to the deadly disease. In past 24 hours, India recorded as many as 1,172 fatalities. So far, 34,71,78 have recovered and been discharged from hospitals.