5L kits procured to conduct test in Covid hotspots in urban, rural clusters
Come Saturday and India will introduce a new way of testing that would identify coronavirus infection through detection of antibody in a patient.
The rapid antibody tests, also known as serology test, will be carried out first in “hotspot” regions in urban and rural clusters. India has reportedly procured nearly 5 lakh such antibody-based rapid testing kits already.
This is not a confirmatory test but the result will come much quicker and will have to be confirmed by an RTPCR test using throat or nasal swab to detect the presence of genetic material of the coronavirus.
In the antibody tests, blood testing is done to trace virus in the human body instead of the traditional testing of nasal or throat swab. The outcome will show whether a person had contacted the disease and recovered on his own.
The rapid tests will be conducted on symptomatic cases and even those with “milder symptoms”. The decision follows concern regarding spread of the disease after the exodus of workers from cities to their villages and the recent spread of the infection through Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi’s Nizamuddin area which the Government has identified as one of the 71 risk hotspots.
The Government told the Supreme Court that there is a possibility that 30 per cent of these people are already carrying novel coronavirus infection.
Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal on Friday at a Press briefing said from Saturday antibody rapid tests will be conducted and a guideline in this regard is in the final stage.
Following decision by the empowered group, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had issued an interim advisory on Thursday on the use of the rapid antibody test and has finalised modalities in this regard.
So far, the ICMR has given approval to 12 antibody-based rapid test kits for novel coronavirus detection, which will hit the Indian pharma market soon. Seven of these are from China, and the other five are from the United States and Singapore. At present, symptomatic individuals who have undertaken international travel in the last 14 days, symptomatic contacts of positive Covid-19 cases and symptomatic healthcare workers are tested for coronavirus. Apart from this, on March 21, the Government and ICMR revised its strategy to include all hospitalised patients of severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) for testing.
Currently, China, South Korea, Japan and the US are manufacturing antibody testing kits to detect Covid-19. An ICMR official said presently there are a total 182 labs, including 52 in private sector that have been approved by the ICMR.
“Widespread antibody testing could also provide key data for efforts to model the course of the pandemic. Current predictions vary so widely, causing some scientists to question the need for severe containment methods such as lockdowns and social distancing. By indicating how much of the population is already immune because of mild infections, antibody data could offer a key to how fast the virus will continue to spread,” says write up in the Science magazine. .
Meanwhile, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has appealed to patients and their families not to create any obstacle in the path of doctors and expressed concerns over misbehaviour with doctors.