West Bengal blames delay in coronavirus test results to defective kits routed through ICMR
The Department of Health and Family Affairs, West Bengal, on Sunday accused ICMR of providing defective testing and blamed them for the reason for delay in coronavirus testing in the state. In a series of tweets, the department spoke at length about the problems that are allegedly being faced by several labs across the country.
"Apropos a mischievous report circulating in social media about the alleged delay in the time taken for testing swab samples in West Bengal, it is clarified that, the testing kits supplied by ICMR-NICED about two weeks ago have started to throw up a large number of ‘inconclusive’ results, necessitating a repeat/ ‘confirmatory’ test run, thereby causing a delay in the generation of the final test report," West Bengal health authorities said.
It further added, "There was no problem earlier when the testing kits were being received directly from National Institute of Virology, Pune. Recently, the supplies to Government Labs in West Bengal have been routed through ICMR-NICED, Kolkata."
West Bengal blames delay in coronavirus test results to defective kits routed through ICMR
The authorities said that this problem was not just being faced in West Bengal but across the country in various labs. "This problem has been faced not just by Government labs in the State but other testing labs in the country, based on their feedback shared in the relevant user groups. The apparently defective test kits supplied by ICMR-NICED, Kolkata are resulting in a high number of repeat/ confirmatory tests and causing delays and other attendant problems at a time when we are battling a pandemic. This is an issue that ICMR needs to look into immediately."
