ICMR's red button on rapid test kits throws Andhra Pradesh plans awry

Amaravati: AP's plans to beat Corona with imported rapid test kits from South Korea took a beating on Tuesday with the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) putting a hold on the tests with them for at least two days.

Following reports of variations noticed in the tests conducted by the rapid test kits and the results derived from regular lab methods, the ICMR has asked the State governments on Tuesday not to press into service the test kits imported by the State governments.

The quirky situation arose after the Rajasthan Government submitted its report to the Centre over the problem. The Rajasthan government had deployed rapid tests in Jaipur and had begun testing using the same hoping that it would make its job easier in identifying the Covid-19 positive patients. It had begun using the kits from Friday last.

While the general belief was that the rapid test kits would yield a 90 per cent accurate result, the outcome of the tests in Jaipur suggested only 5.4 per cent accuracy, according to Rajasthan's Health Minister Raghu Sharma. He immediately informed the ICMR about the same and sought its opinion while putting a hold on the further tests on the advice of the Committee constituted with Medicine and Microbiology heads. The kits had been deployed at the Sawai Mansing Hospital of Jaipur.

The Minister further stated that they were shocked that confirmed positive cases turned out to be negative in the rapid kit test. This has come as a dampener to the AP government as it has already imported one lakh test kits - amid a price tag controversy - and has even gone ahead with the training of its staff. These kits were to be deployed throughout the State in a day or two.

The State government here has been planning to conduct random tests as well as for those recommended by the House Hold Survey committees. The latter have recommended tests for about 34,000 people in the State after their survey. The Chhattisgarh government is one more government which has imported the rapid kits and is awaiting their deployment.