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ICMR starts replacing Covid-19 test kits yielding inconclusive results
“ICMR has decided to replace the kits, which some states claimed were yielding inconclusive results. These kits were supposed to be standardised by medical colleges...,” said Shanta Dutta, director of the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) here.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has begun replacing consignments of “apparently defective” Covid-19 testing kits at state-run laboratories after they produced inconclusive results, a top official said in Kolkata on Tuesday.
“ICMR has decided to replace the kits, which some states claimed were yielding inconclusive results. These kits were supposed to be standardised by medical colleges and kept at -20 degrees Celsius, without which they would give inconclusive results,” said Shanta Dutta, director of the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) here.
“It appears that neither the state-run medical colleges standardised the kits, nor did they maintain the right temperature. But as the testing needs to carry on, these will now be replaced by kits from the National Institute of Virology in Pune.”
Standardisation is the process in which a kit is checked whether it is giving correct results before it is put to use for testing samples.
NICED, part of ICMR, is a research institute under the Union health ministry and the regional virus research diagnostic laboratory (VRDL) for eastern India.
“In Kolkata, we have already replaced around 2,000 kits at IPGMER (Institute of Post-Graduate Medical Education and Research). We have received some requests from the School of Tropical Medicine to get their kits replaced. They are being replaced by kits from NIV in Pune, which are pre-standardised,” Dutta said.
In a string of tweets, the Mamata Banerjee government, which has been criticised for its low rate of Covid-19 tests, accused the ICMR and NICED of providing defective testing kits.
“The apparently defective test kits supplied by ICMR-NICED, Kolkata, are resulting in a high number of repeat/confirmatory tests and causing delays and other attendant problems at a time when we are batting a pandemic,” the state health department tweeted on Sunday.
The state government also tweeted there were no problems earlier when the testing kits were received directly from the NIV in Pune. Recently, supplies to government laboratories in West Bengal have been routed through NICED.
Responding to the state government’s tweets, Dutta said: “Earlier, when kits were required in smaller quantities, they were imported, standardised and then distributed by NIV in Pune. But when the demand started rising, ICMR imported the kits and sent them directly to 16 regional hubs, including NICED in Kolkata.
“The kits were then distributed to state-run medical colleges, where they were required to be standardised. But this is not being done because of lack of time and technical know-how. That’s why sometimes these kits are giving inconclusive results.”
A few days ago, Dutta had said that NICED wasn’t getting enough swab samples from the state government for testing.
Till April 21, the state tested 6,182 samples. There are currently 274 active Covid-19 cases in the state and 15 people have died so far.
