India’s top health research body ICMR gears up to add 200 additiional labs as it has prepared a ‘worst-case scenario’ roadmap for Covid-19 testing.
Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Monday said it is actively considering some interventions to scale up testing capacity to 100,000 tests per day in coming months.
The country currently has a capacity to test 18,000 samples for the novel coronavirus per day across 13 . for the novel coronavirus per day across 136 government laboratories and 56 private laboratories.
In addition to this, two high throughput machine Cobass6800 have been made functional that can test 1,400 samples at a time.
“With a view to preparing for the worst-case scenario, ICMR has taken a number of steps towards enhancing the number of labs, machines and test kits required to test suspected cases across the country,” the council said in a statement.
The government has been facing criticism on its low testing strategy.
