ICMR gears up to conduct 1 lakh test per day in worst COVID-19 scenario

In the wake of the worst scenario, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is actively considering the scale-up testing capacity to 1 lakh tests per day in coming months. At present government and private laboratories combined have the testing capacity of 18,000 tests per day.

New Delhi: Anticipating a worst-case scenario involving COVID-19 in India, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), India’s apex medical research institute, is actively considering the scale-up testing capacity to 1 lakh tests per day in coming months.

At present government and private laboratories combined have the testing capacity of 18,000 tests per day.

Speaking to ETV Bharat, an official of ICMR said that a total of 136 government laboratories and 56 private laboratories have been made functional and are currently engaged in the testing procedure.

“These laboratories have a testing capacity of 18,000 tests per day. In addition to this, two high throughput machine Cobass6800 have been made functional which can test 1400 samples at a time,” the official said.

As on date, ICMR has tested 96, 264 samples of which 3718 were found positive for SARS-CoV-2.

“We are also identifying other government and private labs, research institutes & medical colleges which have the capability and infrastructure to undertake COVID-19 testing and are in conversation with them to include them in the COVID-19 testing network,” the official said.

ICMR is also considering other scale-up interventions such as moving to 24x7 working model at existing labs, coordinating with states to increase manpower for various functions including data-entry, re-deploying automated and manual RT-PCR machines already in the country to aid COVID-19 testing effort, and optimising in-lab processes such as RNA extraction to reduce the turnaround time between sample receipt and testing.

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"ICMR has a constant vigil on the national testing strategy in line with the current trend of the outbreak. RT-PCR is the gold standard testing method for SARS- CoV-2 diagnosis and is in place in all the laboratories for diagnosing the disease," the official said.

New RT-PCR kits are being validated by 4 ICMR institutes for their use. Till now, 19 non-US FDA EUA/CE IVD real-time RT-PCR kits have been validated of which 05 have been recommended based on 100 per cent concordance with positive and negative samples.

Antibody-based tests have also been made available for sero-surveillance. The ICMR will shortly receive 5 lakh antibody-based tests kits, the officials added.

ICMR has released an advisory to start rapid antibody-based blood test for COVID-19 as a strategy for areas reporting clusters (containment zone) and in large migration gatherings and evacuees centres.

“ICMR has validated and recommended 7 such test kits for use,” officials said.

ICMR has validated and recommended TruenatTM beta CoV test on TruelabTM workstation as a screening test.

All positives through this platform will need to be reconfirmed by confirmatory assays for SARS-CoV-2.

All negatives may not be processed further. Currently, there are nearly 300 TruelabTM workstations already deployed in the country and it will be utilized for the testing.

The ICMR has isolated and sequenced the SARS-Cov2 virus and are presently engaged in planning research studies to give insights into the virus, the disease, and its prevention and management, the official added.