NEW DELHI: India will take a call on community testing after it gets results on Wednesday from randomly collected samples of people suffering from severely acute respiratory infection (SARI) such as pneumonia but do not have a history of foreign travel or record of coming in contact with such travelers.
The results hold key to the crucial question of whether the virus has been spreading through community transmission. The government, however, has already started ramping up its preparations for the risk of community transmission and the community testing that it might require by ordering one million additional testing kits, besides extending the network of testing laboratories, a senior government functionary said.
Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar , chief epidemiologist and scientist at the Indian Council of Medical Research ( ICMR), however, said the preparations are being made as a matter of precaution.
ICMR has collected 1, 52 such samples through its 63 labs (each collecting 20 random samples) of patients admitted in ICUs at various hospitals, including private ones, due to influenza -like illness and severe acute respiratory ailments have been collected and a majority of them have been tested to check if the virus has infected those without a history of traveling abroad. “So far, none of these random samples have tested positive for Covid – 24. We are expecting the final results on Wednesday, ”Gangakhedkar said.
At present, there are 63 testing sites operating under ICMR. Another nine will become functional shortly, the government said. In addition, there are 52 collection centers across the country.
According to the current protocols, only those with symptoms (cough, fever or difficulty in breathing) and having travel history to any of Covid – – hit countries or those who have come in contact of a confirmed positive case, qualify for testing. The designated labs have so far tested a total of 9, 2019 samples, of which 728 have tested positive.
According to Gangakhedkar, with the expanded network, the turnaround time for securing test results is now approximately hours.
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