The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in a press conference on March 17, 2020 stated that they had received 500 results of the tests that they had carried out for community testing and all had come negative. These were patients admitted to various hospitals with respiratory conditions and no travel history. This suggests that there is no community transmission yet in the country.
Dr. Balram Bhargava, Director of the ICMR stated that there was no need for indiscriminate testing in the country and that people with travel history, people in close contact with those who have travelled and health workers should immediately get tested if they develop symptoms after self quarantining for a period of 14 days.
The ICMR has also stated that it has tested 11,500 samples till March 16, 2020 of which 137 have tested positive. The ICMR currently has 72 active laboratories with a capacity of testing 90 samples daily in each. Bhargava also stated that the capacity could be doubled if the need for testing arises. Another set of 49 labs linked to government medical colleges, CSIR, DBT, and DRDO are going to be operational in a few days.
The ICMR is going to begin the operations of 2 rapid diagnostic test centres in NCR and Bhubanseshwar which will have the capacity to test 1400 samples daily.
Currently, there is ample stock of reagents but the probes have to be ordered. One million probes have been ordered by the ICMR.
In terms of private laboratories starting conducting, the ICMR stated that they are interacting with a few laboratories but these labs will have to procure their own reagents and probes. These labs will have to contact trace and inform the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) about the cases and adhere to the ICMR guidelines of testing. These tests should have been prescribed by a qualified physician. The ICMR appealed to the labs, once operational to not charge for conducting the COVID-19 tests.
