India Steps Up Efforts To Screen More Cases With Testing Kits, Private Labs At A Cap Of Rs 5000
Even as the government and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) continue to insist that there is no community transmission of coronavirus (Covid-19) in India, efforts are being made to step up the number of people screened for the infection.?
Several companies have been approaching every government institution, from the Department of Biotechnology, the National Biotechnology Mission of the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), ICMR, NIV, health ministry and the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) from the first week of February onwards with proposals to get their test kits for Covid-19 validated.?
Now, the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune has started testing two of them against existing testing kits.?
On Tuesday, CoSara Diagnostics Pvt Ltd in Ahmedabad had become the first Indian company to receive a licence to manufacture coronavirus test kits from the Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation (CDSCO). The company is a joint venture between Co-Diagnostics Inc of Utah, USA, and Ambalal Sarabhai Enterprises of India.Co-Diagnostics had developed the test kit in the US and the company was trying to start manufacturing in India which has been importing the reagent test kits from other countries so far.?
Meanwhile, Swiss firm Roche Diagnostics India received the license for conducting coronavirus tests after approval from drug regulator DCGI, making it the first private firm to get such permission after the government decided to allow accredited private labs to test for COVID-19.According to a senior official, the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) is now assessing giving license to another private diagnostic firm, bioMérieux, which has also sought approval to conduct tests for coronavirus.?
The official said two Indian diagnostic companies-- Trivitron Healthcare and Mylab Discovery Solution-- have also sought approval from the DCGI for the coronavirus testing kits developed by them.The Union health ministry had on Tuesday issued guidelines for private sector laboratories intending to initiate Covid-19 testing.?
According to Hindustan Times, ICMR is set to give 51 private hospitals and laboratories the go-ahead to start testing for the viral disease, but the price of each test is likely to be capped at around Rs 5,000.?
This comes at a time when the total number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 reached 173, with four deaths.However, there is a growing criticism that the specialty low number of infections are the result of the low number of people tested.As of Thursday, India had only tested some 14,175 people one of the lowest testing rates in the world.
