The Indian Council of Medical Research has given nod to nearly 50 private laboratories in India to conduct tests related to covid-19. So far, Govt has permitted four companies to produce their test kits which include Pune based Mylab Laboratories, Germany's Altona Diagnostics, South Korea's Seegene, and SD Biosener. We spoke with three private labs who on the condition of anonymity shared that though four companies have given approvals, only two are in a position to supply. There is a massive shortage of supply and sometimes situation leads to certain private labs having zero kits to test. The bottleneck comes at a crucial time as the Indian government had only last week been given private labs the permission to test novel Coronavirus infection as earlier it was only limited to labs operated by the Indian Council of Medical Research.A private lab which dint want to be named told us, "We have been given 500 kits 4 days back. We do not know how long will we be able to carry on that for. if the kits don't in come by today, we will not be able to do tests tomorrow. The government is much depending on third parties for these kits. "
Infact, R. Gangakhedkar, scientist and head of epidemiology and communicable diseases-I division of ICMR in a press conference today in Delhi mentioned, availability of test kits is an issue due to shortage, and if testing has to be enhanced then, prudent steps need to be taken in.
Mojo Report by Karishma Asoodani
