Telangana govt finds private labs violating Covid-19 testing norms, issues stern warning

Rao said the inspection teams looked at various aspects like infrastructure, human resources, infection control measures and other facilities including general hygiene.

The Telangana government on Saturday hinted at taking stern action against private diagnostic laboratories in the state which are allegedly violating norms and not following the guidelines of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in conducting tests for Covid-19.

The inspection report submitted by the expert teams revealed that many of the labs were not taking safety measures such as the staff not wearing personal protection equipment (PPE), safety cabinets not being available and lack of proper hygienic conditions. (HT PHOTO.)

State director of medical and health G Srinivasa Rao said as many as four teams comprising senior microbiologists and senior officers from the medical and health department, which conducted inspections in 16 out of 18 private laboratories in the state on Wednesday, found large-scale violation of norms in conducting Covid-19 tests.

Rao said the inspection teams looked at various aspects like infrastructure, human resources, infection control measures and other facilities including general hygiene. “The teams went through the registers and data uploaded by the labs into the ICMR and Telangana state portal and found a lot of discrepancies in the data,” he said.

According to the numbers uploaded by the private labs, tests done by them were 9,577 and Covid-19 positive cases detected were 2,076 as per the ICMR portal since they got the permission. But in the state portal, the uploaded figure was 6,733 tests and 2,836 positive cases.

“But during the inspection, it was revealed from the records available with the labs that the total number of tests done by them was 12,700 and the positive cases were 3,571. At one of the labs in a major hospital, the actual number of tests conducted was 3,940 but they uploaded only 1,568 tests and showed 475 as positive,” the director said.

The inspection report submitted by the expert teams revealed that many of the labs were not taking safety measures such as the staff not wearing personal protection equipment (PPE), safety cabinets not being available and lack of proper hygienic conditions. The staff conducting the tests for Covid-19 has not been trained properly in RT-PCR testing.

The report pointed out that some of the labs did not follow measures for quality control and validation of tests. “There is a suspicion that in some labs, pooled testing was being done, instead of individual tests. As a result, some negative cases were also shown as positive,” it said.

It is also suspected that there is possibility of contamination of samples leading to high positivity rate because safety measures and protocols are not followed meticulously. The teams also observed that in some labs, the testing area was very congested, and hygiene was poor and equipment maintenance was not good.

“Some of the labs were conducting tests for walk-ins, advertising that samples would be collected from different places in the city, while the government guidelines very clearly stated that only symptomatic cases and patients admitted in hospitals should be tested,” Rao said.

The expert committees recommended stringent action against some of the labs for violating norms and not following guidelines. ICMR has also directed the Gandhi Medical College to conduct quality control tests for private labs, he said.

When contacted, Suprita Reddy, managing director of Vijaya Diagnostics, a popular diagnostic centre in Hyderabad, said the inspection teams had not found any violations in its labs. “The teams were fully satisfied with the conditions and procedures we are following for Covid-19 testing,” she said.

A top executive in another popular diagnostics in Hyderabad, who pleaded anonymity, admitted there could be discrepancies in the figures being uploaded in ICMR and state government portals. “This is basically because most of the time, their servers would be down and uploading of figures is difficult. There is a lot of clerical activity involved in it,” he said.

He also said testing of samples of Covid-19 suspects was a cumbersome exercise and it depends on the place of collection of swabs – nose or throat. “Sometimes, there is a possibility of the samples testing negative, even if the patients are positive. It happens even in government labs,” he said.