Rajbiraj: State no 2 is facing a shortage of the viral transport medium (VTM) with the government upscaling the test for coronavirus.
The collection of swab from the suspected coronavirus infected people has also been affected with this.
Forty nine thousand swab samples had been collected in the State for testing for coronavirus from mid-March till mid-July, the State no 2 government’s Ministry of Social Development said.
The government had increased the swab collection from July-end. Ninety one thousand 708 swabs have been collected as of Wednesday.
The most number of swabs have been collected in Rautahat, Parsa and Saptari districts, according to the Health Office at these districts.
In Saptari, swabs of 5,440 people were collected until mid-July and at present the swabs of 13 thousand 165 persons have been collected, the Saptari District Health Office’s officiating chief, Duniyalal Yadav, said.
Similarly, swabs have been collected from 19 thousand 525 people in Rautahat and 17 thousand 737 people in Parsa district.
The total number of infected in the whole country has reached 34 thousand 418 with 885 new cases on Wednesday.
Among the infected, 7,045 are women. State no 2 is ahead compared to the other six states in terms of the number of coronavirus infected persons.
According to the Ministry of Health and Population, Sarlahi recorded 120 new cases, Dhanusha 43 cases, Bara has 24 cases, Rautahat has 20 cases, Mahottari has 18 cases, Siraha has three cases and Saptari and Parsa have one new case each on Wednesday.
With this the total number of infected persons in the State has reached 9,945 including 1,421 women. State no 2 alone accounts for nearly 29 per cent of the total infections throughout the country.
Among the infected persons in the State, 4439 have returned home after health recovery.
Secretary at the Ministry of Social Development, Dr Ram Prasad Ghimire said at present swab of nearly 1,000 people is being collected daily for testing for coronavirus since the infection rate is the highest in State-2.
Swab is collected from those people included in the contact tracing, the suspected cases and the active cases.
Officiating chief of the Saptari District Health Office, Yadav also said that they have been collecting swabs of 150 to 200 people daily in the district and only 350 VTM kits are in stock.
He said they are bound to decrease the number of swab collection as they are running short of VTM.
According to him, they will run out of VTM within couple of days and they would have to stop the swab collection. Among the seven districts in the country having more than 500 active cases, five are in State 2 itself.
Mahottari, Bara, Parsa, Rautahat and Sarlahi districts in State 2 have more than 500 active cases. There are 5,556 active cases in State 2.
