ICMR ramps up COVID-19 testing capacity

In a latest development, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has prepared a plan to scale up its testing capacity to at least one lakh tests a day. It has taken various measures to ensure the same. ICMR has developed guidelines ranging from preparation of network of government and private laboratories to ensure efficient validation/evaluation of new diagnostic kits. It has also installed two new automated sample processing systems to speed up the diagnosis process of COVID-19. The two Cobass6800-high throughput system can test up to 1400 samples at a time.

Dr Lokesh Sharma, Scientist, ICMR informed, “Due to the rising number of COVID-19 positive cases in the country, we have installed two high throughput machines Cobass6800 at the Regional Medical Research Centre, Bhubaneswar and the National Institute of Biologicals, Noida. This will help us to conduct more number of tests in the country.”

He further informed that the system was already with us (country) but was operated for other purpose. However, realising the need of the hour, we modified the calibration, which is required for COVID-19 testing.”

In addition to this, ICMR is constantly reviewing the national testing strategy in line with the current trend of the outbreak. It has procured 10 lakh Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) kits used for diagnosis and seven depots have been established for uninterrupted supply of reagents across the nation for efficient distribution to government testing laboratories.

The new RT-PCR kits are being validated by four ICMR institutes for their use. Till now, 19 non-US FDA, EUA/CE IVD real-time RT-PCR kits have been validated of which five have been recommended based on 100 per cent concordance with positive and negative samples. The recommendations have been shared with the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) for taking it forward. ICMR has validated and recommended seven such test kits for use. In addition to this, all US-FDA/EU CE approved RT-PCR and antibody kits can be used for COVID-19 diagnosis after approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) and intimation to ICMR.

Apart from this, antibody-based tests have also been made available for sero-surveillance. However, antibody tests are not suitable to diagnose live COVID-19 infections.

ICMR has also prepared a data portal for streamlining the data collection from all the laboratories on a real-time basis.

Additionally, ICMR has also isolated and sequenced the COVID-19 virus and the scientists at the ICMR are engaged in planning research studies to give insights into the virus, the disease, and its prevention and management. A review committee to formulate National Task Force studies has been constituted for the same. At the national level, ICMR is also collaborating with other science and research agencies (DST, DBT, CSIR, DRDO, DAE, ICAR) for developing research solutions to the COVID-19 situation. ICMR will also collaborate with the World Health Organization (WHO) for a public health emergency

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