Several States waiting for rapid test kits to arrive

New Delhi: Over 200 testing facilities have been set up across the country including 151 government labs and 68 private sector laboratories. As of now, 1,86,000 have been tested. In the last five days, average number of samples that have tested positive per day is 584, according to Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

At least 134 people tested positive for coronavirus in Maharashtra on Sunday, taking the state tally to 1,895, said a state health official

India on Sunday crossed the 8,000-mark and registered 8,356 cases of Covid-19 with the death toll hitting 273, the Union Health Ministry said.

The rapid testing kits, which India was expecting to be delivered in first week of April, will not be here at least until early next week, delaying the country's efforts to use these to test widely in containment zones that have seen a lot of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases . India ordered 500,000 kits from Chinese suppliers on March 30. Several states are waiting for these kits to arrive, and be distributed to them, so that they can start testing, according to HT report. The states have also been allowed to procure kits on their own -- it wasn't immediately clear which have, and how many at that. Separately, the state-owned HLL Lifecare is set to start production of 20,000 rapid testing kits a day at its Manesar factory on Monday.

In anticipation of the arrival of the kits, India issued an advisory on starting rapid antibody testing on April 4, and revised the testing guidelines on April 9 to include rapid testing of all symptomatic individuals in hotspot areas with symptoms at least a week old. After the April 5 date passed without delivery, the ICMR announced in a press briefing that the manufacturers had assured it that the kits would be delivered either by April 8 or 9. That deadline too passed.