With a view to prepare for any worst-case scenario as Indian battles to contain the COVID-19 outbreak, the ICMR on Monday said it is planning several interventions which include scaling-up testing capacity to one lakh tests/day in the coming months.
The ICMR has approved over 200 labs (both public andprivate) for COVID-19 testing through-PCR machines.
“We are also identifying other government and privatelabs, research institutes and medical colleges which have the capability andinfrastructure to undertake COVID-19 testing and are in conversation with themto include them in the testing network,” the apex health research bodysaid.
The ICMR is also considering other interventions such asmoving to 24×7 working model at existing labs, coordinating with states toincrease manpower for various functions including data-entry, re-deployingautomated and manual-PCR machines already in the country to aid COVID-19testing effort, and optimising in-lab processes such as RNA extraction toreduce turnaround time between sample receipt and testing, it said.
“With a view to prepare for the worst-case scenario,ICMR has taken a number of steps towards enhancing the number of labs, machinesand test kits required to test suspected cases across the country. Some ofthese interventions are being actively considered to scale-up testing capacityto 1 lakh tests/day in upcoming months,” it said.
As on April 6 at 3.45 pm, ICMR has tested 96, 264samples of which 3,718 were found positive for SARS-CoV-2.
A total of 136 government laboratories and 56 private laboratories have been made functional and are currently engaged in the testing procedure. These laboratories have testing capacity of 18,000 tests per day, the ICMR statement said. In addition to this, two high throughput machine Cobass 6800 have been made functional which can test 1400 samples at a time.
The ICMR has prepared a data portal for streamlining thedata collection from all the laboratories on a real-time basis, it said.
Besides, the ICMR has procured 10 lakh ReverseTranscription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) kits used for diagnosis andseven depots have been established for uninterrupted supply of reagents acrossthe nation for efficient distribution to government testing laboratories.
“ICMR has a constant vigil on the national testingstrategy in line with the current trend of the outbreak. Till now, 19 non-USFDA EUA/CE IVD real-time-PCR kits have been validated of which 05 have beenrecommended based on 100% concordance with positive and negative samples,”the body said, adding the recommendations have been shared with the CentralDrugs Standard Control Organisation(CDSCO) for taking it forward.
Apart from this, antibody-based tests have also been madeavailable for sero-surveillance.
“However, antibody tests are not suitable to diagnoselive COVID-19 infections,” it said adding it has released advisory tostart rapid antibody based blood test for COVID-19 as a strategy for areasreporting clusters (containment zone) and in large migrationgatherings/evacuees centres. ICMR has validated and recommended seven suchtest kits for use.
“ICMR has validated and recommended TruenatTM beta CoVtest on TruelabTM workstation as a screening test.”Allpositives through this platform will need to be reconfirmed by confirmatoryassays for SARS-CoV-2. All negatives may not be processed further. Currently,there are nearly 300 TruelabTM workstation already deployed in country and itwill be utilized for the testing,” it said.