The Chhattisgarh government will procure 75,000 rapid diagnostic (RD) kits from South Korea that will be used for both pool testing and diagnostic probe to detect Covid-19 infection, an official said o Wednesday.
The step has been taken after the ICMR has advised states to halt the diagnosis of Covid-19 through the RD kits supplied by China to India, an official said on Wednesday.
A number of states have raised the issue of faulty RD kits that China supplied.
Chhattisgarh had received more than 4,800 RD kits and the ICMR is likely to issue a new directive regarding the use of the kits.
To procure the RD kits from South Korea, an emergency tender has been floated, the official said.
Meanwhile, after the AIIMS, Raipur, now the pool testing has also begun at the Dr BR Ambedkar Memorial Medical College Hospital in the state.
Until Tuesday, 60 samples in both pool and individual category were tested, taking the total number of samples tested in the state to 177, the official said and added that all the results have tested negative.
The RD kits from South Korea will be used for pool testing and probe, said Raipur chief medical and health officer, giving the details of clusters from where the pool testing samples have been collected.
All the samples are sent separately and the sample mixing is done as per the ICMR guidelines and protocol, the CMHO said.
The policy is that if test is positive in the pool, then the individual sample will be taken for further testing, the official said.