Chemists in Maharashtra districts with high Covid cases to keep records of self-test kit buyers

Pune: With Covid cases rising in the state, especially in Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Palghar and Raigad, the state health department has directed chemists' associations to maintain records of buyers of self-test kits or rapid antigen kits so that they can be shared with local authorities.

"Considering the sudden rise in Covid cases, we have directed manufacturers, chemists/pharmacists supplying and selling home antigen testing kits to provide information to us. There may be some cases that have been tested with home test kits but not reported on the ICMR portal. In such cases, we cannot track the patient and it becomes difficult for us to contain the spread of the virus," said a state public health official. Anil Belkar, secretary, chemists' association, Pune district, said that they have circulated the message to all retail medical stores to ensure that details of the buyers are noted down so that they can be shared with the local health officials, if required.

The health department had directed chemists to maintain records of buyers of self-testing kits during the third wave, too. Now, again with cases rising in mainly five districts, chemists have been directed to ensure that details are noted down diligently. Association members of the state chemists and druggists' association said that many people are buying the testing kits from online sites, which also needs to be monitored. Chemists have also been told to educate buyers of self-testing kits about the application they need to download. Through the app, the test data is connected with the ICMR portal and citizens have to ensure that it is uploaded within the given time frame.

State surveillance expert Dr Pradip Awate told TOI that if self-testing kits are used then the data should be uploaded. "With cases increasing in clusters, we need to stress more on RT-PCR tests than RAT tests," he said. Those detected positive with RAT have to follow it up with RT-PCR tests as samples have to be sent for genome sequencing," he said. Dr Awate said that while the daily cases in the state are hovering around 4,000-5,000, severity of cases continues to be low.