India: 16 private labs can now conduct Covid-19 tests

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the country’s apex biomedical research body, on Monday approved ten more private laboratories including Dr Lal PathLabs, Dr Dangs Lab and Indraprastha Apollo Delhi in Delhi to check for the coronavirus disease, taking to 16 the number of personal facilities which will begin collecting samples whenever they're ready.

ICMR, however, failed to expand its criteria for people to be ready to take the test, with only those with travel history and symptoms and other people in direct contact with positive cases eligible to possess their samples taken.

Several experts have raised concerns over tests not being dispensed aggressively or randomly enough, saying that a ramped-up approach could stop a silent spread of the highly contagious pathogen. The Asian country, for example, has founded drive-through tests, where samples are collected within minutes, and other people get their reports the subsequent day.

Other than the three labs within the Capital, two Tamil Nadu-based labs – Department of Clinical Virology, CMC, Vellore, and Department of Laboratory Services, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai – Mumbai-based SRL Limited, Haryana-based Strand Life Sciences and SRL Limited, Gujarat-based Supratech Micropath Laboratory & Research Institute and Apollo Hyderabad in Telangana were approved to hold out tests. ICMR approved six other private labs on Sunday.

“Our experts are staring at the lab requests and giving approvals in batches. As of today, 12 private labs are approved, which will increase the gathering and testing capacity. These 12 lab chains put together have about 15,000 collection centres across India,” ICMR director-general Dr Balram Bhargava said earlier within the day before four more labs were cleared for testing.

All these labs have fulfilled ICMR conditions mandatory for private facilities to gather samples and test them. The requirements include National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories accreditation with real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction testing for RNA virus and presence of all testing material, except the structure of the virus that ICMR will share. Factual time reporting of the cases to the govt. has to be dispensed through local surveillance units.

“We are given approval for testing, and that we will be following the ICMR guidelines; only those with a prescription issued by a certified doctor are going to be tested,” said Dr Naveen Dang, founder, Dr Dangs Lab, Delhi.

Close to 60 private laboratories had approached ICMR for registration since the organisation issued guidelines for personal labs aspiring to test for Covid-19. Private laboratories must register with ICMR to be ready to conduct the test for the new disease, which has killed a minimum of 15,000 people globally. ICMR is additionally within the process of fast-tracking approvals for commercial testing kits.

“Our nodal laboratory in the National Institute of Virology in Pune is staring at the standard of kits and has already approved two kits by Indian manufacturers. Other than FDA- and European CE-approved kits, ICMR-certified kits will be eligible to be used for testing in labs across India,” said Dr Bhargava.

There are about 116 government laboratories that ICMR has earmarked for Covid-19 testing, including 72 of ICMR’s viral research and diagnostic laboratories (VRDLs). Thirty-one of the govt. Laboratories have up to now been approved for both preliminary and confirmatory testing across India.

“Indiscriminate testing isn't the answer; the solution lies in isolation to interrupt the transmission cycle, which is why lockdown could be a pertinent step,” Bhargava said. Since mid-January, India has tested 18,500 samples.