'Defective kits' from ICMR-NICED lead to COVID-19 test delays: WB Govt

The West Bengal government has alleged that the COVID-19 testing kits provided by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) are defective, leading to defective leading to faulty and confusing results.

Kolkata: The West Bengal government has alleged that the COVID-19 testing kits supplied by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) are defective and are leading to faulty and confusing results.

Of late, the Mamata Banerjee government has come under severe criticism of projecting faulty or less COVID-19 positive cases in the state and also that adequate tests are not being conducted.

In a series of tweets by the state health and family welfare department, the government has said: “The testing kits supplied by ICMR-NICED about two weeks ago have started to throw up a large number of 'inconclusive' results, necessitating a repeat/'confirmatory' test run, thereby causing a delay in the generation of the final test report.”

Squarely blaming the kits for the delay in receiving reports, the government said “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.”

Elaborating the gamut of the problem, the government has said: “This problem has been faced not just by Government labs in the state but other testing labs in the country.”

“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 battling a pandemic. This is an issue that ICMR needs to look into immediately,” it added.

The Opposition BJP and Left Front have already raised serious concerns over the rate of testing of COVID-19 patients and the resultant delay in treatment. The BJP has also accused the West Bengal government of deliberately suppressing figures. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has rubbished the allegations and has said that -the Opposition was playing a blame game in the time of a pandemic.