Huge influx of travellers increases backlog of samples awaiting tests

Over 30,000 of the one lakh samples collected in the last one week have piled up in various labs

Although Karnataka has ramped up its testing facilities with 60 labs, the huge influx of people from other States has resulted in a massive backlog of samples awaiting tests in various laboratories across the State.

According to official estimates, over 30,000 samples of the one lakh collected in the last one week have piled up in various labs and more are getting accumulated. Even if the labs test to their average full capacity of 200 samples a day, it will take at least eight days for the backlog to be cleared.

At premier institutes

Also with most labs in the districts not taking up testing to their optimum capacity, the three premier labs in Bengaluru at NIMHANS, BMCRI, and NIV State Unit are compensating by testing 500 to 1,000 samples a day. Samples from other districts, especially in north Karnataka, are being reallocated to these three labs and are under process.

Attributing the backlog to the “generous sample collection and testing” policy being undertaken in the State, C.N. Manjunath, who is the nodal officer for labs and testing in the State’s COVID-19 task force, said there is a gap of two to three days in getting the results after the samples are collected as they are reallocated and transported to other primary labs.

In districts such as Kalaburagi and Yadgir, where nearly 37,000 and 10,000 samples have been collected, respectively, in the last one week, the backlog is huge, he said.

According to data from districts, as on May 28, the highest number of samples whose results are awaited are in Vijayapura at 11,108. However, Vijayapura Deputy Commissioner Y.S. Patil said all these were of travellers who fall in the non-emergency category.

In Kalaburagi, as many as 5,374 samples are pending at the VRDL lab in the Gulbarga Institute of Medical Sciences. Kalaburgi Deputy Commissioner B. Sharat said this includes 3,452 samples of Maharashtra returnees and 1,900 samples from different places in the district. This is apart from the 5,161 samples sent to NIMHANS in Bengaluru. In Yadgir, the test reports of 7,288 samples are awaited.

“Kalaburagi district has received the largest number of migrants from Maharashtra — around 32,000 — in the entire State and thus the sample collection is also relatively high. It naturally overburdened the Kalaburgi lab,” he said.

However, Hassan, which is one of the 10 districts that saw a sudden spurt in the number of positive cases after the curbs were eased, the pendency is minimal, with results of only 139 samples awaited. B.C. Ravi Kumar, director of the Hassan Institute of Medical Sciences (HIMS), said 487 samples were sent to Bengaluru as the HIMS lab could handle only up to 300 samples a day. Belagavi has a pendency of 1,313 samples, which is 10 times the number of pending tests prevailing in the first week of April.

V. Ravi, senior professor and head of Neuro Virology at NIMHANS, who is also part of the COVID-19 expert committee, said 3,500 samples were pending in the NIMHANS lab. This includes nearly 2,000 samples sent from Kalaburagi, he said. Similarly, at the VRDL lab in BMCRI, over 2,300 samples are under process. Shantala G.B., assistant professor of microbiology at BMCRI, said the lab was overburdened with an average of 1,000 samples being sent from north Karnataka districts daily.

Reason for restriction

Sources said it was because of this huge backlog that the government had now decided to restrict movement of travellers from the high prevalence States. “We cannot achieve anything by testing indiscriminately as community transmission cannot be stopped now,” said a senior official.

(With inputs from Afshan Yasmeen, Kumar Buradikatti, Rishikesh Bahadur Desai, Sathish G.T., Ravikumar Naraboli, and Firoz Rozindar)