• Case detection drops during the week
• Still averages higher than country’s
Morung Express News
Dimapur | October 31
The detection of COVID-19 cases in Nagaland significantly dropped during the week but there has been no let up in the overall positivity rate. As per the latest weekly COVID report published by the state Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP), Health & Family Welfare, on October 31, Nagaland reported 509 cases during the week (October 24-30) out of 3781 samples tested, returning a positivity rate of 13 percent for the week.
For comparison, the positivity rate for October 17-23 was 18 percent or 832 cases out of 4735 samples.
“The sample positivity rate (for Nagaland) declined this week but it remains higher than the national average,” stated the IDSP, as the overall rate witnessed a decimal shift, rising to 9.1 percent from 9 percent. The national average stood at 7.4 percent.
Breakup of the week’s cases revealed 307 traced contacts, 141 armed forces personnel, 24 returnees and 37 frontline workers. Dimapur (287), Kohima (146) and Mon (42) reported the maximum cases.
There was improvement in the rate of recovery and testing, increasing to 80.8 percent and 47.8 tests per thousand, respectively. The sluggish testing rate was “attributed to a more ‘targeted and focused testing’ approach.”
The country’s recovery rate was over 90 percent and was testing 80.7 per thousand. The mortality rate increased to 0.37 percent against the national 1.49 percent.
The State Death Review Committee confirmed 11 COVID-19 deaths this week.
October highs
In other major updates, October reported the maximum number of cases (2782) till date despite fewer testing, as per the IDSP. The positivity rate for the month was 15.4 percent out of 18,807 samples tested.
August was the month with highest number of tests at 22,970 samples returning a positivity rate of 9.8 percent.
October also reported the most deaths in a month, till date, which was tipped at 15.
With 24 deaths, as on October 30, almost a third of the deaths occurred in Dimapur. Kohima has reported 6 deaths, followed by Mon, Mokokchung and Wokha reporting 1 each. 60% of all deaths were below 60 years of age.
Hypertension and Diabetes were the most common associated co-morbidities. It said, “This is alarming due to the high prevalence of non-communicable diseases (Hypertension, Diabetes, Heart diseases) in the state.” It added that infections in people with co-morbidities (0.73 percent) were slowly increasing.
Maximum number of critical cases needing ICU care and invasive ventilation happened in October. There was a 5-fold increase in cases requiring ICU care in October, the IDSP said.
Traced contacts
The percentage of traced contacts of the total cases in July was only 7 percent. However, 57% of cases detected in October were from traced contacts.
A youthful and unconcerned population spreading the virus to the elderly was reiterated as more than half of the traced contacts were found to be in the 21-40 years age group. This age group is “expected to follow all safety measures and strictly avoid social events and gathering,” the IDSP said.
“In the past week, there was a 1 percent increase in the 60-plus age group which indicates an epidemiological shift from the younger to the older age groups. The percentage of traced contacts in the 60 plus age group is now 5 percent,” it added.
Close-contact settings, especially households, offices, restaurants, prison, church, old age home etc continued to see rising infections, out of which, households (28 percent) and offices (23 percent) happened to be the most common places of spread.
As stated earlier, detection among students (18 percent of positive traced contacts) continued to remain high, while there was increasing positivity among patients attending flu clinics.
An infected person is most infectious 1 or 2 days before symptoms and during the symptomatic phase.
Case distribution
In terms of case contribution, the armed forces continued to lead with 45 percent of the total cases, followed by traced contacts- 29 percent, returnees- 21 percent and frontline workers- 5 percent.
The percentage of traced contacts, as per the previous weekly report, was 32 percent. As on October 30, Dimapur had 54 percent of the total confirmed cases, followed by Kohima at 30 percent. The third most affected district was Mon with 6 percent of the total cases and the other districts’ case percentage were below 5 percent.
The percentage of symptomatic cases remained at 4 percent. The most common reported symptoms were fever (77 percent), cough (48 percent) and shortness of breath.
The age of the positive cases ranged from 1 month to 98 years, with a median age of 32 years.
