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In order to prepare for the worst-case scenario, India has started preparing to test 1 lakh samples per day for coronavirus, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has said. Currently, the country can test around 18,000 samples per day.
The decision to ramp up testing capacity comes in the wake of severe outbreaks of the novel coronavirus in several parts of the country.
From a capacity of conducting tests on around 5,000 samples per day on March 13, 2020, ICMR has now increased its capacity by 260 percent to 18,000 samples a day, with the support of private labs. Now, 192 testing laboratories, including 136 government labs and 56 private labs, have become operational.
It is important to note that there was not a single private lab in India’s COVID-19 testing network until 20 days ago. ICMR has also made two high throughput machine Cobass6800 functional and these can test 1,400 samples at a time.
In addition to these labs, ICMR has also started identifying other government and private labs, research institutes and medical colleges which have the capability and infrastructure to undertake COVID-19 testing.
It is also considering operating the existing labs 24x7 and is in discussions with states to increase manpower for various functions including data-entry, re-deploying automated and manual Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) machines, and optimising in-lab processes such as RNA extraction to reduce turnaround time between sample receipt and testing.
While ICMR was testing around 60-70 samples across its network of 51 labs as on March 13, it has gradually increased it to testing over 11,000 samples a day as on April 6.
As of Wednesday 9 am, India had a total of 4,421 positive cases of COVID-19, of which 3,981 were active. While 325 patients have been discharged so far, 114 people have succumbed to the virus.
Among the positive cases so far, about 76 percent are male and rest female. Overall, nearly 47 percent of positive cases have been found in people under the age of 40 years and nearly 34 percent cases are in people between the age of 41 and 60 years.
Of the casualties, 73 percent are male and the rest female. Nearly 63 percent of the reported deaths are people aged above 60 years; 30 percent are between 40 and 60 years old, and 7 percent are below 40 years. Overall, around 86 percent of the fatalities have exhibited co-morbidity related to diabetes, chronic kidney issues, hypertension and heart-related problems.
In order to manage COVID-19 in clusters that are reporting high number of positive coronavirus cases, ICMR has also approved seven types of rapid antibody-based blood test for COVID-19.
ICMR has procured 10 lakh RT-PCR kits used for diagnosis and seven depots have been established for the supply of reagents across the country.
"RT-PCR is the gold standard testing method for SARS- CoV-2 diagnosis and is in place in all the laboratories for diagnosing the disease. New RT-PCR kits are being validated by four ICMR institutes for their use. Till now, 19 non-US FDA EUA/CE IVD real-time RT-PCR kits have been validated of which five have been recommended based on 100 percent concordance with positive and negative samples," ICMR said.
In addition, ICMR will also collaborate with the World Health Organization for public health emergency solidarity trial– an international randomised trial of additional treatments for COVID-19 in hospitalised patients.
https://www.cnbctv18.com/healthcare...h-samples-per-day-for-coronavirus-5639191.htm
