PANAJI
In view of the rising cases, the State government has issued a circular directing all international passengers from high risk countries as well as non-high risk countries be tested for Covid on arrival.
Health Minister said, “Earlier, we used to test only two per cent of the passengers travelling from non-high-risk countries. However, the government of Goa has now taken a decision in public interest to test all international passengers.”
He also informed that the government has approved capping of Rapid RT PCR test at the cost of Rs 1,500 until further review.
He also informed that the government is already in the process of procuring a genome sequencing machine from USAID and Jhpeigo.
“I have issued directions to Dean GMC to pursue the proposal for another machine that we'd already submitted to the government for clearance. This will enable us to test samples in the state and avail results at the earliest. The government of Goa is working unabated to ensure we get a genome sequencing machine at the earliest,” he stated.
Meanwhile, Goa recorded 261 new cases of Covid-19 on Thursday along with one Covid related death taking the number of active caseload in the state to 856.
In the last five days alone, 610 new cases of Covid have been added to the active case count in Goa.
The steep rise in daily positivity rate has also posed a major concern to the public health officials. With 261 cases being detected from the 3,610 samples tested in the last 24 hours, the daily positivity rate of Goa stood at 7.22 per cent.
