Referring to the death of positive patient in Hajin Bandipora , who had no travel history, Doctors Association of Kashmir has raised an alarm regarding community transmission in the valley.
Dr Nisar said there may be many more cases than just few that have been confirmed.To pick them up we need to expand testing. If we don’t expand testing, how can we say there is no community spread,” he said adding “we need to shift our focus from a predominantly target testing to community testing.
“Mass testing is important as that would determine the actual burden of community transmission and would allow us to implement informed containment strategies.
With the availability of rapid tests, health authorities in Kashmir should conduct mass testing of hotspots and random sampling of other areas to know the actual magnitude of the problem,” said Dr Nisar.
