Despite recent surge of 164 Covid-19 positive cases here, the medical department in Mokokchung is now faced with major issues in testing and manpower availability.
Even as ‘active case survey’ conducted at Mokokchung town between May 31-June 1 had detected many positives cases, Imkongliba Memorial District Hospital is facing hiccups in testing as some machines were out of order due to technical issues and, adding to the woes of hospital, some of its doctors and staff had tested positive, thereby affecting its normal functioning.
One doctor from IMDH told Nagaland Post on condition of anonymity that the surge in positive cases was on expected lines and explained that any pandemic had a peak and plateauing. The doctor attributed the spike in cases to people not following Covid SOPs, while pointing out that another factor responsible was people not coming forward to seek medical attention despite being sick.
Testing machines: It has been learnt that out of four TrueNat RNA machines for Covid testing, three had initially gone out of service and testing was being done only with one machine. As one of the machine was repaired and brought from Guwahati, it has been pressed into service since the past one or two days. This led to delay in declaring test results as machine shortage could not cope up with the numbers of tests conducted, even as samples are being sent to BSL2 lab at Tuensang, which takes three to four days for the results to arrive. Thus, an individual has to wait for several days awaiting test results.
IMDH staff: Coupled with this, around 30 staff, including doctors had also tested positive, thus hampering the normal functioning of the hospital.
And with the threat of the virus spreading to villages looming large, another doctor from IMDH confirmed that at least 10 villages in Mokokchung district reported the virus, which was a cause for concern.
As a result, District Task Force has decided to activate Covid care centres in villages and also conduct community surveillance.