tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
PLoS One
. 2021 Dec 3;16(12):e0260979.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260979. eCollection 2021.
COVID-19 testing, timeliness and positivity from ICMR's laboratory surveillance network in India: Profile of 176 million individuals tested and 188 million tests, March 2020 to January 2021
Manickam Ponnaiah[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Rizwan Suliankatchi Abdulkader[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Tarun Bhatnagar[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Jeromie Wesley Vivian Thangaraj[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Muthusamy Santhosh Kumar[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Ramasamy Sabarinathan[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Saravanakumar Velusamy[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Yogesh Sabde[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Harpreet Singh[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Manoj Vasanth Murhekar[SUP] 1 [/SUP]
Affiliations
Abstract
Background: The Indian Council of Medical Research set up a pan-national laboratory network to diagnose and monitor Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Based on these data, we describe the epidemiology of the pandemic at national and sub-national levels and the performance of the laboratory network.
Methods: We included surveillance data for individuals tested and the number of tests from March 2020 to January 2021. We calculated the incidence of COVID-19 by age, gender and state and tests per 100,000 population, the proportion of symptomatic individuals among those tested, the proportion of repeat tests and test positivity. We computed median (Interquartile range-IQR) days needed for selected surveillance activities to describe timeliness.
Results: The analysis included 176 million individuals and 188 million tests. The overall incidence of COVID-19 was 0.8%, and 12,584 persons per 100,000 population were tested. 6.1% of individuals tested returned a positive result. Ten of the 37 Indian States and Union Territories accounted for about 75.6% of the total cases. Daily testing scaled up from 40,000 initially to nearly one million in March 2021. The median duration between symptom onset and sample collection was two (IQR = 0,3) days, median duration between both sample collection and testing and between testing and data entry were less than or equal to one day. Missing or invalid entries ranged from 0.01% for age to 0.7% for test outcome.
Conclusion: The laboratory network set-up by ICMR was scaled up massively over a short period, which enabled testing a large section of the population. Although all states and territories were affected, most cases were concentrated in a few large states. Timeliness between the various surveillance activities was acceptable, indicating good responsiveness of the surveillance system.
. 2021 Dec 3;16(12):e0260979.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260979. eCollection 2021.
COVID-19 testing, timeliness and positivity from ICMR's laboratory surveillance network in India: Profile of 176 million individuals tested and 188 million tests, March 2020 to January 2021
Manickam Ponnaiah[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Rizwan Suliankatchi Abdulkader[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Tarun Bhatnagar[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Jeromie Wesley Vivian Thangaraj[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Muthusamy Santhosh Kumar[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Ramasamy Sabarinathan[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Saravanakumar Velusamy[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Yogesh Sabde[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Harpreet Singh[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Manoj Vasanth Murhekar[SUP] 1 [/SUP]
Affiliations
- PMID: 34860841
- DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260979
Abstract
Background: The Indian Council of Medical Research set up a pan-national laboratory network to diagnose and monitor Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Based on these data, we describe the epidemiology of the pandemic at national and sub-national levels and the performance of the laboratory network.
Methods: We included surveillance data for individuals tested and the number of tests from March 2020 to January 2021. We calculated the incidence of COVID-19 by age, gender and state and tests per 100,000 population, the proportion of symptomatic individuals among those tested, the proportion of repeat tests and test positivity. We computed median (Interquartile range-IQR) days needed for selected surveillance activities to describe timeliness.
Results: The analysis included 176 million individuals and 188 million tests. The overall incidence of COVID-19 was 0.8%, and 12,584 persons per 100,000 population were tested. 6.1% of individuals tested returned a positive result. Ten of the 37 Indian States and Union Territories accounted for about 75.6% of the total cases. Daily testing scaled up from 40,000 initially to nearly one million in March 2021. The median duration between symptom onset and sample collection was two (IQR = 0,3) days, median duration between both sample collection and testing and between testing and data entry were less than or equal to one day. Missing or invalid entries ranged from 0.01% for age to 0.7% for test outcome.
Conclusion: The laboratory network set-up by ICMR was scaled up massively over a short period, which enabled testing a large section of the population. Although all states and territories were affected, most cases were concentrated in a few large states. Timeliness between the various surveillance activities was acceptable, indicating good responsiveness of the surveillance system.