The Mamata Banerjee government in Bengal, which has been drawing flak for the low rate of Covid-19 tests, has accused the central research institute, the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) of providing defective Covid-19 test 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 evening.
ICMR –NICED in Kolkata is a research institute under the union health ministry and also the regional Virus Research Diagnostic Lab (VRDL) for eastern India.
The state government also tweeted that there was no problem earlier when the testing kits were being received directly from National Institute of Virology, Pune. Recently, the supplies to government labs in West Bengal have been routed through ICMR-NICED, Kolkata.
NICED director, however, said state-run medical colleges were unable to standardize the kits in the absence of proper technical know-how, leading to inaccuracies.
“Earlier when kits were required in smaller quantities they were imported, standardized and then distributed by NIV, Pune. But when the demand started rising ICMR imported the kits and sent them directly to the 16 regional hubs including NICED in Kolkata. The kits were then distributed to state-run medical colleges where they were required to be standardized. But this standardization is not being done because of the lack of time and technical know-how. That’s why sometimes these kits are giving inconclusive results,” said Shanta Dutta, director of NICED.
{{/usCountry}}“Earlier when kits were required in smaller quantities they were imported, standardized and then distributed by NIV, Pune. But when the demand started rising ICMR imported the kits and sent them directly to the 16 regional hubs including NICED in Kolkata. The kits were then distributed to state-run medical colleges where they were required to be standardized. But this standardization is not being done because of the lack of time and technical know-how. That’s why sometimes these kits are giving inconclusive results,” said Shanta Dutta, director of NICED.
{{/usCountry}}A few days back Dutta had alleged that NICED was not getting enough swab samples from the state government for testing.