As Centre flags Mizoram for Covid-19 uptick, officials say rise due to ‘selective’ testing model

Earlier this week, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said in a letter that cases, as well as the test positivity rate, had seen an increase in the small hill state in the Northeast.

Last September, as the second wave was on the wane in the rest of the country, Mizoram was among the top five contributors to fresh infections in the country. (File)

Days after the Centre flagged Mizoram for an uptick in Covid-19 cases, health officials in the state said there was no reason for alarm. The high positivity rate, they said, was because of the “selective” testing model the state followed and did not reflect the “true picture”.

“What we do is not blind testing. We test only those who are likely to be positive, not everyone,” said Dr Pachuau Lalmalsawma, state nodal officer of the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme. The state moved away from a model of mass testing a while back, he added. “We carry out testing in accordance with our resources,” he said.

Earlier this week, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said in a letter that cases, as well as the test positivity rate, had seen an increase in the small hill state in the Northeast.

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“[Mizoram] has witnessed an increase in positivity in the last week from 16.11 per cent to 16.68 per cent. It has reported 539 new cases from 521 new cases in the week ending April 19,” Bhushan pointed out. This is the second time this month that the Centre has flagged Mizoram for a surge in positivity rate and cases.

Bhushan directed Mizoram, along with three other states and the Union Territory of Delhi, to maintain a “strict watch and take pre-emptive action in any areas of concern to control any emerging spread of infection”.

With a population of barely 12 lakh, Mizoram has always been an outlier among the smaller states – last September, as the second wave was on the wane in the rest of the country, Mizoram was among the top five contributors to fresh infections in the country.

In March, the state reported 11,032 cases at a positivity rate of 16.3 per cent. This month, till April 21, there have been 2,036 cases at a positivity rate of 14.1 per cent.

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Mizoram continues to test symptomatic contacts of a positive patient, said Lalmalsawma. “We first do a RAT on them, if they are negative – we then run an RT-PCR,” he said.

Lalmalsawma added that symptomatic people voluntarily came forward to get tested at the many testing kiosks across the state the government had set up. “Things are more or less under control,” said the state’s health minister, R Lalthangliana. “People are generally more alert and that is why we have continued to report cases,” he said.

Moreover, casualties have been low. Lalthangliana added the state’s death rate (0.3 per cent) was one of the lowest in the country. “Even those who have died had comorbidities — more than 80 per cent,” he said.

The state still has restrictions on mass gatherings and mask wearing continues to be mandatory.

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