The government is planning to increase the testing capacity to 40,000 tests per day by the end of April. On Tuesday, ICMR said at the daily briefing that currently they are conducting 21,000 tests per day.

The authorized testing committee of the government is led by CK Mishra, including Balram Bhargava (ICMR), Randeep Guleria (AIIMS), Bharat Lal (PMO), Debasree Mukherjee (ICMR), Nivedita Gupta (ICMR) and Venkateswaran (NABL). They have been engaged in utilizing the existing capabilities and creating new ones to address the major challenge in the fight against coronavirus. The main idea behind this is that if India has to handle or prevent the spread of the infection, and control it, it would require much more testing.

Till now, there are 244 testing labs that are working on coronavirus. Out of them, 171 are government labs and 73 are of private sector.

The government has permitted 14 top medical institutions across the country to create, track and monitor laboratories in their regions by decentralizing the decision-making power from ICMR.

K. Vijayaraghavan, principal scientific adviser had tweeted that their office to the Government of India has developed a “Handbook for COVID-19 testing in Research Institutions”. It allows a lab to self-assess readiness, in terms of equipment, staff, and capability. This protocol should be followed by these institutions.

The government has also planned to utilize the labs of science institutes like IISER, which is working under the Department of Science and Technology and the Ministry of HRD. These could double up as testing laboratories.

The National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories has asked to fast-track the standards compliance method for all new laboratories. Also, ICMR is educating them on including the specific bio-safety protocols for coronavirus.

As per the sources, importing testing kits and RNA extractors from the other countries is the biggest challenge. The third crucial component, Viral Transport Medium will be manufactured in the 1st production facility in Goa from Thursday.

In the last few years, India has built up capacity for RT-PCR (reverse transmission polymerase chain reaction) tests for SARS and tuberculosis. Both of them uses similar testing protocols and equipment. All of these are being taken to conduct testing for coronavirus. Also, the government has selected 15 depots to decentralize distribution of these testing kits throughout the country, to reduce the transport delays.

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Source: ET Healthworld