KATHMANDU, OCTOBER 9 Infectious diseases experts have said that the most effective way to break the chain of coronavirus transmission is to adopt a three-pronged approach: ramp up testing, make contact tracing effective and isolate the infected. Senior Consultant, General Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Anup Subedee said the government must ramp up polymerase chain reaction testing and increase the scope of contact tracing if it wanted to effectively control COV- ID-19 pandemic. “World Health Organisation says positivity rate should not cross five per cent of the total tests, but our positivity rate is around 19 per cent. This means the government is not doing enough testing,” Subedee said. He added that the government was tracing around two contacts of each positive case in Kathmandu, whereas other countries that succeeded in reducing COVID transmission traced up to 50 contacts of each patient. He said the government could learn from China’s Hubei province where the government had mobilised 1,800 teams to trace contacts of COVID patients involving 9,000 health professionals. “Our government should consider mobilising at least 5,000 people in Kathmandu valley. If the government cannot find adequate number of health professionals, it can train high school graduates to do the needful,” he added. Subedee said fighting COV- ID-19 in the community by ramping up tests and increasing effectiveness of contact tracing would be better than taking pains to arrange ICUs and ventilators for the infected people. Subedee said the government’s decision not to test asymptomatic cases and those suspected of having died of COVID-19 was also responsible for the dramatic spike in COVID-19 cases in the recent days. He said the government must arrange isolation centres for housing to keep at least 40,000 to 50,000 asymptomatic cases. “In Kathmandu, asymptomatic people can safely isolate themselves in not more than five per cent of the houses. This means that by forcing more people to isolate themselves in their homes, the government could expose occupants of such households to the risk of COVID-19 infection,” he added. He said the government should try to isolate all asymptomatic people in government designated isolation centres. Former director of Epidemiology and Disease Control Division Baburam Marasini said the health ministry had not issued clear guidelines to make people aware of safe practices. “I see people not wearing masks properly. That’s why people working in government places, banks, hotels and restaurants are contracting the disease,” he said. Marasini said enforcing odd-even vehicle rule was also responsible for spike in COVID-19 cases as people were increasingly sharing rides and using crowded public vehicles. “If the government allows all vehicles to ply, unnecessary crowding of public vehicles can be reduced,” he argued. He added that the government should have told the public to avoid crowded places. Assistant Spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Population Samir Kumar Adhikari said that non-compliance of the health safety measures was the main reason for the rise in COVID cases. He added that unless the public followed health guidelines, controlling the pandemic would remain a challenge. “People give swabs to the laboratories and before their swab results come, they go to their work place and continue doing their jobs. This is dangerous. We have to stop such practices,” he added. Adhikari said the government had the capacity to test over 30,000 people a day and some more labs were in the process of being set up. He said the ministry was trying to formulate a new plan to contain the pandemic without elaborating the options the ministry was mulling over. He said managing the increased number of positive cases had become more challenging in the recent weeks.