As India battles the deadly Coronavirus, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Tuesday asserted that it has 72 functional ICMR laboratories in government sector for testing, adding that 49 more will be active by the end of this week. It added that India is at stage 2 and not stage 3.
Addressing a press brief in the national capital, ICMR Director-General Dr Balram Bhargava, "Currently the laboratory expansion of ICMR is engaged, we are expanding our number of laboratories and as we speak, today we have 72 functional laboratories in ICMR system. These labs include CSIR, DRDO, DBT, and government college labs. By the end of this week, 49 more will be active. We already know that we are in stage 2. We are not in stage 3, clearly," he added.
"There are four stages--the third stage is community transmission which we hope we shouldn't have. It would depend on how strongly we close our international borders, in terms of which the government has taken very proactive steps. But can't say that community transmission won't happen," said Bhargava.
"Weekly, the ICMR is collecting 20 samples from random patients who have respiratory problems. 500 patients results are out and all are negative and means there is no community transmission," he added.
The ICMR also announced that it is in the process of engaging private NABL accredited laboratories for carrying out testing of COVID-19 cases, adding that private NABL accredited laboratories will soon be operationalised.
"All asymptomatic patients who undertook international travel should be home quarantine. They should be tested if symptoms are there and if positive then should be isolated in the hospital. All lab-confirmed positive cases should be at home for 14 days. They will be tested only if symptoms are there," the ICMR added.
The ICMR further announced that rapid testing labs are also being operationalised and they can sample 1,400 samples in one day. Bhargava said, "We have already placed orders for 1 million probes, reagents and primers are unlimited. We have also requested WHO to provide us with 1 million probes."
"We appeal to all private laboratories to offer COVID-19 diagnosis free of cost," added Bhargava.
