New Delhi|Ekta
As the COVID-19 caseload has started increasing exponentially, the Centre on Wednesday changed its testing strategy by directing states/UTs to do away with the norm of mandatory prescription from a government doctor for undergoing a COVID-19 test and allow laboratories to test symptomatic individuals for the coronavirus infection.
In a letter, which is jointly written by Health Secretary Preeti Sudan and ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava, marked to chief secretaries, administrators, advisers to Governors and Lieutenant Governors across states and UTs, the Centre has strongly advised states/UTs to take all possible steps to ensure full capacity utilisation of all COVlD-19 testing laboratories in their respective states/UTs.
“In view of the increased load on government healthcare facilities, this mandatory requirement may at times pose an impediment for an individual to get tested and to lead to unnecessary delays,” the letter stated.
At present, a prescription from a government doctor is necessary to take a COVID-19 test in any laboratories in the country. The ICMR has recommended that “laboratories should be free to test any individual in accordance with the ICMR guidelines.
However, the ICMR has also asked the states to allow all the medical practitioners, including private doctors, to prescribe COVID-19 test to anyone fulfilling the criteria for testing.
“Since ‘test-track-treat’ is the key strategy for early detection and containment of the pandemic, it is important to augment testing for coronavirus in all parts of the country as it’s the only way to detect the infection early and prevent its spread,” the Health Ministry letter said while stressing on empowering citizens for testing of the virus to save precious lives.
The Centre has also directed states to make efforts in ‘campaign mode’ by setting up camps/using mobiles vans in high incidence areas to collect samples of all symptomatic individuals as well as their contacts and get those samples tested by using rapid antigen tests.
All positive individuals to be treated as per the treatment protocol and the negative ones would be tested for RT-PCR, it said, adding that the rate for RT-PCR testing should be fixed in all tests.
As of now, the ICMR has approved 1,056 testing laboratories, which includes 764 labs in the ICMR network and 292 in the private sector.
However, while hailing the Health Ministry’s move, the experts have asked the government to reduce the cost of COVID-19 testing at private labs.
