Coronavirus pandemic | Clashing state orders, shortage of test kits hinder private labs

Despite the Centre listing 51 private labs and 16,000 collection centres to facilitate testing for coronavirus (COVID-19), they have been unable to ramp up capacity due to shortage of kits and as state orders clash with Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) guidelines, The Economic Times reported.

GSK Velu, MD of Neuberg Diagnostics, told the newspaper that collecting samples from homes or isolated collection centres Ahmedabad and Chennai are difficult “as the local government does not approve this”.

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The ICMR guideline encourages home testing — which means samples can be collected from homes or from isolation zones; however, Gujarat, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu do not allow this process. The states have also banned private labs from conducting the tests in their own facilities, the report noted.

Gujarat has, in fact, issued show cause notices to private labs asking them why they are collecting samples from homes; while Tamil Nadu has directed them to only collect samples from government institutions.

Home testing reduces the risk of infection for those collecting the samples and it keeps the possibly infected individual within their home. It has been widely employed globally.

Experts have criticised India for not testing enough. Till April 1, India tested 47,951 samples — private labs conducted merely 816 of these, the paper added.

So far, close to only 50,000 tests have been conducted across the country, for a population of 1.3 billion people. This is in stark contrast with South Korea (316,664 tests) and Germany (167,000).

But labs say apart from the tug-of-war with state governments, there is also a shortage of testing kits. Transportation disruption, especially inter-state, has further exacerbated the issue.

“The testing kits are in short supply. Their availability might be scattered across the country, but because of lockdown, we are not able to get adequate quantity,” Ravi Gaur, COO of Delhi-based diagnostic chain Oncquest told ET.

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