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.
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.
Authors: Yuki Furuse; Yura K Ko; Kota Ninomiya; Motoi Suzuki; Hitoshi Oshitani Journal: Int J Environ Res Public Health Date: 2021-04-27 Impact factor: 3.390
Authors: Jeromie Wesley Vivian Thangaraj; Muthusamy Santhosh Kumar; C P Girish Kumar; Pragya Yadav; D Sudha Rani; T Karunakaran; Manoj Murhekar Journal: Front Public Health Date: 2022-04-04