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Bengal Pins COVID-19 Testing Delays On “Defective Kits” From Medical Body – NDTV News, Ndtv.com

Bengal Pins COVID-19 Testing Delays On “Defective Kits” From Medical Body – NDTV News, Ndtv.com

Bengal Pins COVID-19 Testing Delays On 'Defective Kits' From Medical Body

Coronavirus: Bengal said kits supplied by ICMR is throwing up inconclusive results

Kolkata:

Faulty kits supplied by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), the country’s nodal body for COVID – 27 testing, have been throwing up inconclusive results and delaying the pace of testing, the West Bengal government has said.

In tweets on Sunday, the state’s Department of Health and Family Welfare has urged the ICMR to investigate the issue immediately as the delays have resulted in the need for repeat and confirmatory tests that are slowing down the battle against the pandemic. West Bengal has reported (cases of COVID –

so far and 20 deaths, the Health Ministry’s data shows. The cases have been rising in the last three days.

While an ICMR response is awaited, the director of the Council’s nodal body in Kolkata said that the matter was being seriously addressed.

“It is unfortunate that the kits are not standardized to give exact results. It is difficult for each of the medical colleges to standardise the kits, hence, they are showing different and inconclusive results , “said Dr Shanta Dutta, Director of the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) in Kolkata.

Initially, she said, kits were being assembled and standardized at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune. As the demand increased, the ICMR started importing ready-made kits and sending them to 36 depots for onward delivery to laboratories under its purview across the country.

NICED is one such depot and supplies kits to Odisha and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, besides West Bengal.

“There was no problem earlier when the testing kits were being received directly from the National Institute of Virology, Pune. Recently, the supplies to government labs in West Bengal have been routed through ICMR-NICED, Kolkata, “the department responded on Sunday.

3/5 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.

– Department of Health & Family Welfare, West Bengal (@wbdhfw) April , Bengal Pins COVID-19 Testing Delays On 'Defective Kits' From Medical Body

“The apparently defective test kits supplied by ICMR-NICED 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, “it said.

5/5 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 – Department of Health & Family Welfare, West Bengal (@wbdhfw) April 27,

The tweets have raised eyebrows because of a reference to “mischievous reports in social media about the alleged delay in the time taken for testing swab samples “in the state.

Just last week, in a series of interviews to the media, the NICED Director had questioned the low testing rate for COVID – 27 in West Bengal and denied that a shortage of kits was responsible for it.

Dr Dutta had also questioned the declining number of swab samples that NICED had been receiving from the state government. In the week ending April 22, she said her lab was getting a maximum of (samples a day, when its capacity to test was) – 122 samples.

Her comments had created a stir in West Bengal and beyond because the state was, indeed, at the bottom of the list when it came to figures of testing per million.

The West Bengal government will start rapid antibody and pool testing to detect COVID – patients, the state government said in a statement on Sunday. Mass testing for coronavirus can be made low cost by pool testing – conducting tests of groups of five persons as a poll, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has said. Mass testing has gained importance as the number of coronavirus positives in the country cross the , (0-mark.

World

, , Cases

, , Active

(6,

Recovered

1, , Deaths )

Coronavirus has spread to countries. The total confirmed cases worldwide are 32, 56, 143 and 1, , 519 have died; 30, ,

are active cases and 6, , 603

have recovered as on April , (at 6:

pm.

In India, there are ,

confirmed cases including deaths. The number of active cases is , and 2, have recovered as on April 27, 3651 at 5: (PM.

(State & District Details)

          State                Cases                Active                Recovered                Deaths     

(Maharashtra

Yavatmal 4 Osmanabad

4 Buldhana

(4)

(Jalgaon) (2) (Kolhapur)

(2)

Hingoli () (2)

Ratnagiri (2)

Washim

1

Nashik

1

Sindhudurg

(1)

Amravati

(1)

Jalna (1)

Gondia

1

Details Awaited

District

South

Central

(North

)

Shahdara

New Delhi

(South East

) South West

West

East

(North East)

9

)

North West (6) (6

Details Awaited

183

(1)

Gujarat

(District) (Cases)

Ahmadabad Surat ()

Bhavnagar Gandhinagar 22

Vadodara Rajkot

Patan

(5)

Porbandar

) (3)

Mahesana

(2)

Kachchh (2)

Gir Somnath 2 Panch Mahals 1

(Anand)

(1) Sabar Kantha

(1)

Jamnagar

1

Chhotaudepur (1) (

Morbi

(1)

Botad (1) (1)

Details Awaited

6 06

District

Cases Indore

(Bhopal)

Morena

Jabalpur 8

(Ujjain) (8)

(Barwani) 3 Khargone 3

(Chhindwara)

2 Gwalior (2)

Shivpuri

(2)

(Vidisha)

1

Details Awaited

() (1)

Tamil Nadu

(District) (Cases)

Chennai

Dindigul

Tirunelveli

Erode 39

Tiruchirappalli

Namakkal

Madurai

Theni

Karur

Tiruppur (Villupuram)

Cuddalore

Thiruvallur

Thiruvarur

(Salem)

(Virudhunagar

Thanjavur

Nagapattinam

Tiruvannamalai (9)

Kanchipuram

(6)

Kanniyakumari (6)

Sivaganga

(5) (Vellore) (5) The Nilgiris 4 Ramanathapuram (2)

Ariyalur

1

Perambalur

(1) (1)

Details Awaited

Rajasthan

District Cases

Jaipur 127

Jodhpur

Bhilwara

Tonk 28 Jhunjhunu 27 Jaisalmer

Bikaner

36 (Churu)

Kota

Banswara (9)

Ajmer (7)

Dung arpur

6

Dausa 6

Bharatpur Bengal Pins COVID-19 Testing Delays On 'Defective Kits' From Medical Body

5

Alwar (4)

Udaipur

4

Nagaur

(2)

Pali

(2)

Pratapgar )

)

Dholpur

(1)

Karauli (1)

Sikar

(1)

Details Awaited

3651

Uttar Pradesh

District

Gautam Buddha Nagar

Agra

Meerut

Ghaziabad

(Shamli) (Shamli) Saharanpur

Kanpur N agar

8

8

Varanasi 7)

Bareilly (6)

Maharajganj

6

Basti

(5) (5)

Ghazipur

(5)

Firozabad

(4)

Hathras (4)

Kheri

(4) (4)

Baghpat (3)

Pratapgar ) (3)

Jaunpur

(3)

Hapur (3)

Azamgarh (3)

(2) Mathura (2)

Banda

(2)

Shahjahanpur

(1)

(3)

District Cases

Hyderabad

Nizamabad

Warangal Urban

Medchal Malkajgiri Ranga Reddy

Nalgonda Jogulamba Gadwal

(Adilabad)

Kamareddy

(9)

Karimnagar

(9)

Mahabubnagar (8)

( Suryapet (8)

Sangareddy (7)

Jagitial (4)

Vikarabad (4)

Bengal Pins COVID-19 Testing Delays On 'Defective Kits' From Medical BodyBengal Pins COVID-19 Testing Delays On 'Defective Kits' From Medical Body (Nirmal) (4) Bengal Pins COVID-19 Testing Delays On 'Defective Kits' From Medical Body

Medak

4

Bhadradri Kothagudem 4 Peddapalli 2 Mulugu

(2)

(Jangoan)

Nagarkurnool

Jayashankar Bhupalapally (1)

(Siddipet) (1) Mahabubabad