A year and half after the coronavirus pandemic began in India, two of five districts still don’t have a laboratory to conduct the RT-PCR or...
A year and half after the coronavirus pandemic began in India, two of five districts still don’t have a laboratory to conduct the RT-PCR or real time polymerase chain reaction test that is considered the gold standard for Covid-19 detection, data from the Indian Council of Medical Research shows.
There is no government-run RT-PCR lab in 342 of India’s 742 districts (46%), while 306 districts (41.2%) lack both government and private labs.
The largest gaps in testing infrastructure exist in the North East. Of 120 districts across eight states in the region, 99 districts (82.5%) do not have a single RT-PCR lab.
From the start of the pandemic, inadequate testing has been a matter of concern in India. In March 2020, the country had just 65 government labs for Covid-19 testing and was conducting just five tests per million population.
Since then, the testing ratio has improved to 3.5 lakh tests per million population, with 48.17 crore tests done till August 9. The number of ICMR-approved labs for Covid-19 testing has expanded to 2,808, as of July 31. But only 1,717 labs – 625 run by the government and 1,092 in the private sector – are equipped to conduct RT-PCR tests.
The remaining 1,091 labs rely on CBNAAT, TrueNAT...
