Shortage of kits delays labs from testing Covid-19

Although The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has given nod to three private laboratories in Karnataka to do Covid-19 testing, shortage of testing kits has led to a delay in starting the work. Sources in the health department said that four laboratories that have recently got ICMR’s permission may have to wait for a few more days to start testing as the state government is in the process of procuring kits for polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) test. “The problem is, there is a shortage of kits even at the ICMR level. We have placed an order with a private firm to procure kits. We will distribute kits to the government and private laboratories and hopefully they can start testing in four days,” a top official at the health department told ET.

ICMR has given permission to three private laboratories and the Air Force’s Command Hospital in Karnataka. The three private labs are: Neuberg Anand Reference Laboratory in Bengaluru, Kasturba Hospital Lab Services in Manipal and Cancyte Technologies Pvt Ltd also in Bengaluru. So far the testing is done in five government laboratories: BMC and NIV Field Unit in Bengaluru, Mysore Medical College, HIMS Hassan and SIMS Shivamogga. The government is developing five additional laboratories that include one in NIMHANS, Wenlock Hospital, Mangaluru and at district hospitals in Belagavi, Ballari and Dharwad.

Dr CN Manjunath, director of Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research and nodal officer for Covid-19 lab testing said that the state government is procuring 5,000 testing kits from Pune-based Mylab Discovery Solutions. “At present, we are testing a very small number of suspected cases. This is stopping us from accessing the exact situation,” he said. As on Thursday, the state has collected 2,731 samples for testing of which 62 cases had tested positive.


The state, Dr Manjunath said, is also trying to procure one lakh antibody-based kits for early diagnosis from a Chinese manufacturer. The rapid immune-based testing kits that were widely used in China and South Korea to do mass testing of Covid-19 suspected people, is likely to scale up the testing scenario in Karnataka too. “We are going to place an order within a day,” Dr Manjunath said.