The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Tuesday advised states to not use the new rapid test kits for coronavirus for two days.
At the daily government briefing on the COVID-19 situation in the country, ICMR’s Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar said, “there has been significant variation in detection of RT-PCR positive samples, varying from 6% to 71% We will advice states not to use these COVID19 testing kits during the next two days. If there is some fault in the batch, we will ask the company to replace the kit.”
Gangakhedkar said a total of 4,49,810 samples for COVID-19 infection have been tested so far. A total of 35,852 samples were tested on Monday, out of which 29,776 samples have been tested in 201 labs under the ICMR network and 6,076 at 86 private laboratories.
Health Ministry’s Joint Secretary Lav Agrawal said a total of 18,601 confirmed COVID-19 cases have been reported in the country so far. As many as 3252 persons i.e. 17.48% of total cases have been cured/discharged after recovery. A total of 590 deaths have been reported so far due to COVID-19.
