Civil hospital gets advanced dengue antigen test kits

LUDHIANA: After a delay of two years, the civil hospital has finally received kits, under National Vector-borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), for conducting advanced dengue antigen test. The test will enable patients receive reports in a day, besides it will make cross-examination of the reports of private hospitals easier and accurate.
Earlier, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test was conducted in the civil hospital and its report took five days.The city doctors have always stressed antigen test, also known as spot test, saying it is better than ELISA, which at times makes dengue diagnosis difficult.
A private doctor said, "The health department authorities often pressurize us not to reveal the dengue patient count, but in the past two years, they never worked towards getting kits for antigen test. With they now having the kits, manipulation with the count will not be easy.''
Senior medical officer Karamveer Goyal said the kits were received under NVBDCP on Sunday. "These will make dengue diagnosis easier and cross-examination of private hospitals' reports accurate,'' he added. Civil surgeon Dalip Kumar said, "Antigen test will spell relief for doctors as well as patients.''
On the allegations, he said, "We never pressurized private hospitals not to reveal dengue count. We always want that only positive cases be reported as these, along with suspected ones, can spread panic in the city. Besides, till now we had only depended on ELISA test, which is not there in private hospitals.''