Srinagar, Mar 5: An increasing number of Covid-like illnesses among people are being reported from various areas in Kashmir, even as the patients’ Covid19 test reports turn negative.
This new trend has surfaced recently among several individuals in Kashmir, experiencing high fever, pneumonia, loss of smell and apettite and yet RT-PCR tests turning out to be negative.
“My father has been suffering from high fever and intense fatigue for many days. On the second day of her fever we tested her for Covid19 through RT-PCR, but that turned out to be negative. However, we were not satisfied because the symptoms were classical Covid19 symptoms, so we kept her in isolation”, said Naseem Ahmed (name changed), from Srinagar’s Chanapora area.
The family tested the sick family member again after a week and it turned out to be positive.
In another instance, a woman from Soura area of Srinagar is reported to be experiencing the classical Covid19 symptoms and, yet, her report has turned out to be negative.
Meanwhile, such cases are being reported in other parts of the valley as well, with experts expressing anxiety that such cases might actually be of a different variant of Covid19, and, therefore, unable to be detected through the standard RT-PCR tests.
Concerned with this emerging situation, Dr Nisar ul Hassan-led Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) on Friday said new Covid-19 variants can be missed by RT-PCR test.
“A negative test does not exclude the possibility of infection with a mutated strain of the novel coronavirus,” said Dr Nisar in a statement to media.
“RT-PCR test is the most common diagnostic test used to identify people infected with Covid-19 infection. We could receive a false negative test result, if a mutant has infected a person,” he further added.
“Evidence is emerging about how these variants differ in transmission characteristics, associated clinical symptoms and vaccine efficacy”, DAK president further said.
“New variants have the ability to evade detection by the molecular test. That means a person infected with a mutant may not be detected and consequently may not be isolated from the healthy population,” the statement further said.
“And, these individuals will continue to spread the disease in the community. Picking up variants is critical to devise appropriate and effective health policy to prevent and control their spread in the community,” Dr Nisar observed.
“In order to detect Covid-19 variants, genomic sequencing which assesses the complete genetic structure of the virus is required. While RT-PCR test tells you if Covid-19 virus is in a person’s body, genetic sequencing would tell you about the specific strain of the virus that the person has been infected with,” DAK faction further noted.
Meanwhile, experts are calling for a systematic study of the current variant of Covid19 strain existent in Kashmir and the reasons for RT-PCR tests unable to pick up the virus among many people.
“This is a serious situation. Urgent steps are required to study the variant which is causing illnesses among people but RT-PCR and also the rapid antigen tests are unable to detect the virus”, Dr Samiullah, a Bangalore-based epidemiology expert told Ziraat Times.
On Friday Covid19 claimed one more life in Jammu and Kashmir taking the toll of deaths related to Covid-19 to 1,960 while as 81 fresh positive cases were reported taking tally of positive cases to 126,853.