New Delhi: With the Coronavirus cases on the upsurge with numbers nearing 1 lakh mark, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has revised its guidelines for Covid-19 testing.
Among the most important revised guideline is the clause for testing of frontline workers. As they work in the most difficult environment and very prone to virus infection, the ICMR has decided to test their samples across the country.
The revised strategy also says that all symptomatic influenza-like illnesses among returnees and migrants within seven days should be tested for the virus.
All hospitalised patients who develop ILI symptoms should also be tested, apart from asymptomatic direct and high-risk contacts of a confirmed case, which shall be tested between day 5 and day 10 of coming into contact.
An ILI case is defined as one with acute respiratory infection with fever more than 38◦C and cough while a Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) is defined as one that has all those symptoms and requires hospitalisation.
“All testing in the above categories is recommended by real time RT-PCR test only,” ICMR has said.
