The Far West government is preparing to send people in quarantine home without COVID-19 test in lack of kits.
The provincial health directorate issuing a notice has said asymptomatic persons who have stayed at quarantine facilities for 14 days will be sent home without tests.
"There are people who have remained in quarantine for even 25 days. There are no kits for tests. We have, therefore, decided to send asymptomatic persons home without test," Director with the directorate Dr Guna Raj Awasthi told Setopati.
He added that all the local bodies have been instructed to that regard through the district public health offices.
The provincial decision is against the guideline issued by the federal Health Ministry that says those in quarantine will be given rapid diagnostic tests (RDT) after 14 days. The ministry had issued the guideline as laboratories had huge piles of swab for PCR tests.
But the Far West has said it is not possible to send them home only after test in lack of kits. "Over 66,000 persons are in quarantine. We don't have even a single RDT kit. We, therefore, have no alternative to sending them home untested," Dr Awasthi added.
He pointed that local bodies are struggling to keep untested persons in quarantine beyond two weeks in lack of space as people are still returning from India.
Social Development Minister of Far West Krishna Subedi, however, claimed that 20,000 RDT kits are being sent to districts since Thursday. He expressed ignorance about not doing even RDT test of asymptomatic persons staying for two weeks and more in quarantine.
Testing has been massively affected in the Far West that has the lowest lab capacity and the largest number of people returning from India. The single laboratory in Dhangadi can conduct only 250 PCR tests a day and it still has a backlog of 1,500 samples.
The directorate last week had stopped swab collection for five days pointing at the piles of untested samples. It has yet to resume collection of swab even after five days.
Lack of RDT kits has now meant those in quarantine will be sent home without any test if they don't show symptoms.
