The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)’s Deputy Director Dr Raman Gangakhedkar on Tuesday advised the states not to use Rapid Testing kits (RTKs) for two days. “A lot of variations, kits will be tested and validated by on-ground teams and we will give advisory in the next 2 days,” he added.
ICMR’s suggestion comes after several states, including Rajasthan, have now complained about the Rapid Testing Kits.
Earlier in the day, Rajasthan Health Minister Raghu Sharma said that the state has stopped conducting rapid tests for COVID-19 as the accuracy of kits from ICMR is “questionable”.
“We had received rapid testing kits from ICMR and it was used in Rajasthan. We formed a committee of the head of our Microbiology Department and head of our Medicine Department to see if these tests are effective. Its accuracy was supposed to be 90 per cent, but it turned out to be 5.4 per cent,” Sharma said.
“We did not leave any procedural loophole. We kept in mind ICMR guidelines for testing. Still it did not meet the standards, so we stopped the rapid tests. We have written to ICMR that we will not conduct it as the accuracy is questionable. We are waiting for a reply,” he added.
Gangakhedkar further added that 4,49,810 samples have been tested so far. 35,852 samples were tested yesterday, of which 29,776 samples were tested in 201 Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) network labs and remaining 6,076 samples were tested in 86 private labs.
Meanwhile, till now, there are 18601 positive cases. So far, 3252 people have recovered including 705 people who recovered yesterday. This takes our recovery percentage to 17.48%, said Lav Agrawal, Joint Secy, Health Ministry.
(With inputs from Agencies)