ICMR releases revised guidelines for Covid-19 testing

NEW DELHI: Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has released revised guidelines for TrueNat, a comprehensive assay for screening and testing for positive cases for Covid-19, on Tuesday.

The circular published by the apex medical body also elaborated on the steps to be followed for new testing.

As per the guidelines, all samples of Covid-19 suspect should be first tested by this assay, and later be subjected to confirmation by step 2.

Step 2 is called RdRp gene confirmation assay, and if the sample tests positive through this it must be considered as true positive.

As for the negative samples, they must be considered as true negatives. No further testing is needed for them, it said.

24,04,267 samples have been tested as per the ICMR data, last updated on May 19, 9 am IST.