India has put the community surveillance program on halt after some variations were found in rapid antibody testing kits for COVID-19 procured from China. After receiving the issue on Tuesday, the Indian Council Of Medical Research (ICMR) has asked all the states to stop the usage of these testing kits for the next few days.
States got almost 75,000 kits from the centre which were to be used for screening in 82 hotspot districts and for healthcare workers. In the same regard, ICMR will be sending expert teams on ground to validate the test results and if ‘faulty’, they will be sent back to the manufacturer in China.
The decision was taken after receiving complaints over the accuracy from one state and cross-checking the same with two other states, Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar, ICMR’s Head of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases said in a statement.
In a report by CNBC, Dr. Raman also mentioned that the variation was 6 percent while in others it was 71 percent, as compared to results of the RT-PCR tests done on the same positive samples, adding that ICMR is taking these accuracy issues seriously and will investigate further on ground.
Kerala, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu have expressed their dismay to the quality of test results on these Chinese test kits. According to the CNBC report, Rajasthan wellbeing priest Raghu Sharma had first raised the warning saying that the quick test units had just 5.4 percent precision against the desire for 90 percent exactness.
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