Coronavirus situation in India under control, no need to use rapid test kits

New Delhi : A group of ministers on Saturday decided to postpone the use of rapid test kits as currently the coronavirus situation in under control in India.

“According to the government, currently, the capacity is to conduct more than 15 lakh tests. Additionally, several Indian companies are in the process of developing test kits. More than 1.25 lakh volunteers are ready to assist in the fight against,” reported ANI quoting sources.

On Friday, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said that all the faulty kits will be returned to the originating country, including China. “We haven’t yet paid a penny,” the health minister had said.

According to reports, India had placed orders for about 37 lakh rapid antibody testing kits from various companies based out of China, South Korea and Singapore. About 7 lakh kits have already reached India — mainly from China.

A couple of days back, ICMR asked states to suspend the usage of rapid testing kits amid reports of faulty results.

“We got a complaint about less detection from one state. So we spoke to three states and found that a lot of variation is there in the accuracy of test results of positive samples, in some places it is 6 per cent while others it is 71 per cent,” ICMR chief R Gangakhedkar had said.