Karnataka may test all with ILI, SARI symptoms for Covid

BENGALURU: Karnataka may now step up testing for Covid-19 in people with symptoms of influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI), as the test load on the state’s laboratories has come down.

Last week, the health department decided to exempt asymptomatic interstate travellers from Covid-19 test. Since this has eased the load on laboratories, the government is considering testing all people with ILI and SARI symptoms.
An officer, privy to the discussions at a meeting on Tuesday chaired by chief secretary TM Vijay Bhaskar, said the state was planning to test all such patients identified during a door-to-door health survey.


While Bengaluru has stopped testing asymptomatic travellers, districts like Udupi, Kalaburagi and Raichur continue to test even asymptomatic returnees, especially from Maharashtra, as a precautionary measure.

Kalaburagi deputy commissioner B Sharath has ordered testing of all interstate returnees just to be extra careful to contain the spread of the disease. With 510 Covid-positive cases, the district tops the list in the overall caseload. Kalaburagi has recorded 36,500 returnees in the last few weeks and the district administration has tested 10,500 of them. “We will test all of them,” Sharath said.

In Bengaluru, the city municipal administration is testing certain categories of people excluding asymptomatic interstate travellers. “Our focus is on testing high-risk contacts of Covid patients, any person with SARI symptoms, all ILIs in containment zones, all symptomatic passengers, all international returnees and symptomatic health care professionals,” BBMP special commissioner (health) Ravi Surpur said.

The BBMP has tested 7,165 international and interstate passengers in May, 22,000 people belonging to various categories like primary contacts, ILI and SARI patients, pregnant women and health staff.

Public health experts have recommended that the government streamline the system to test ILI and SARI cases. “We need to aggressively look for ILI and SARI cases, especially among the elderly and vulnerable and test them,” Covid-19 technical committee chairperson MK Sudarshan told ET.

He said the government should focus on having a system in place that allows people with ILI or SARI to walk into even a private facility and get tested. “The system should be made less cumbersome,” he said.

The door-to-door health survey has identified 1.65 lakh people in the state with ILI symptoms and 57 lakh high-risk category people. Although the government is keen to keep a tab on ILI patients identified in the survey and test them, some officials have raised concern since the survey data were dynamic. “ILI patients who were surveyed three weeks ago might have recovered by now. We should, therefore, build a system that allows the government to trace ILI patients and test them without delay,” a health officer said.