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ICMR looks at private medical colleges to ramp up Covid-19 testing infra
Among the 47 labs that are currently under various stages of receiving ICMR approvals to conduct Covid-19 testing, 46 belong to private medical colleges.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is ramping up molecular testing for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) by approving medical colleges, including private ones, with labs that have the capacity to do Reverse-Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) testing, the most accurate way to diagnose the viral disease.
With 900,000 tests performed on Wednesday, ICMR is inching closer to achieving its target of building enough capacity for India to perform one million tests a day by the end of the month. Currently, about 25-30% of the Covid-19 tests are performed using rapid antigen tests, according to ICMR.
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Among the 47 labs that are currently under various stages of receiving ICMR approvals to conduct Covid-19 testing, 46 belong to private medical colleges.
RT-PCR is the gold standard of testing for Sars- CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. All the identified laboratories are equipped to perform the test, ICMR said. RT-PCR has essential requirements in terms of biosafety and biosecurity as well as specialized equipment; it needs a sophisticated laboratory to carry out the test, and ICMR has been making efforts to identify and add as many laboratories as possible to conduct it. Currently, 1,494 labs are conducting Covid-19 tests in the country, including 977 labs in the government sector and 517 in the private sector.
Experts say RT-PCR may be a complex text to perform, but is the most accurate molecular test available currently, and an important component in enhancing testing capacity.
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“RT-PCR is the gold standard of testing . Having said that, rapid antigen is quicker so there is this accuracy vs. speed challenge that we have to face. As far as accuracy is concerned, RT-PCR any given day is more reliable,” said Dr Lalit Kant, former head of epidemiology and communicable diseases, ICMR. Rapid antigen tests throw up more false negatives (they identify infected people as uninfected, but results are usually available with the hour. In contrast, RT-PCR tests could take three to four days including logistical delays -- something that could work against the principle of quickly identifying and isolating infected people.
The maximum number of labs are located at private colleges in two states, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, with the former having 24 lab approvals under process and the latter, 15. The other states with their labs under consideration are located in Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Sikkim, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan with one lab each. One college on the list is a government medical college in Maharashtra.
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“Several measures are being taken to ensure testing capacity meets the target of one million tests in the coming weeks. The measures include making use of labs of medical colleges with the basic infrastructure to conduct molecular tests that can be mentored and upgraded to equip them to perform Covid-19 tests,” said an ICMR official who asked not to be named.
In addition, this person added, work is also afoot to upgrade existing labs by way of increasing testing machines, manpower and shifts to be able to run more samples in a day.
The million-tests-a-day target was first suggested in a column in Hindustan Times.
Efforts are also being made to make use of some RT-PCR machines installed in other government labs that are being used for performing other molecular tests.
“There are about 200 such machines in other labs that can also be deployed for Covid-19 testing. All this is being done to ensure we reach the target of one million as planned,” the official cited above added.
“In times of pandemic, it is a good idea to make use of all available resources at hand, and the private sector has come in quite handy both for testing and patient management in Covid-19 response. Almost all medical colleges have a full-fledged microbiology department running and their laboratories are well-equipped to do these tests,” said Dr MC Misra, former director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.
“Since we still have a long way to go in this pandemic, the capacity building in whichever way possible must be continued,” he added.
