The government on Thursday said RT-PCR tests to detect Covid-19 will be reduced to 40 percent of all tests by the end of the next month. The Covid testing capacity will be ramped up by increasing the number of antigen tests in the country, the officials said.
Indian Council of Medical Research General Balram Bhargava said India’s daily Covid testing capacity will be brought up to 45 lakh, of which 18 lakh will be RT-PCR tests while 27 lakh will be Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT).
We are doing 16-20 lakh tests this week and we have a capacity of about 20 lakh tests by end of the month and up to the end of next month we can have the capacity of upto 45 lakh because ICMR has validated more than 105 RAT companies and approved 41 of them and 31 of them are indigenous, Bhargava said.
However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier said that of the total number of Covid tests, 70 percent should be the gold standard RT-PCR test. Instead, as per a new announcement by ICMR chief, less reliable antigen tests will comprise 60 percent of the total Covid testing capacity.
In response to rising cases in rural areas, Bhargava said RAT is the backbone of testing. They are planning to deploy mobile testing vans which can cover 10 villages a day. In larger cities, however, the focus was mainly on RT-PCR but at the district level, the backbone of testing has been TrueNAT and CBNAAT, he said.
In the second wave, we have to ramp up the RAT testing, we have written to all chief secretaries and they have acted upon it. Multiple 24X7 RAT booths to be set up in cities, towns and villages said Bhargava.
The antigen tests will be allowed at all government and private healthcare facilities. Aso RAT booths will be set up with the community in schools, colleges, community centres, RWA offices etc. All RT-PCR and RAT test results should be uploaded on the ICMR portal, he said.
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The government has encouraged testing at all primary health centres and sub-centres which are 1,87,601 so testing. People testing positive can be isolated immediately and those who are testing negative and are still symptomatic, their samples need to be sent for RT-PCR testing so that will have to go to a facility. But if the positivity rate is high then RAT will be able to isolate them very fast, he added.