Congress's Rahul Gandhi today demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi remove what he called the "bottleneck" regarding testing of coronavirus in the country – a reference to the Rapid Tests that have come to a sudden stop. The Indian Council of Medical Research, the nodal body for coronavirus testing, had called off the tests after complaints from Congress-ruled Rajasthan that the kits were faulty.
While the ICMR had assured that it would sort out the matter within a couple of days, it is yet to happen.
Mr Gandhi today tweeted:
In their Zoom conversation, Congress leaders have discussed the virus test situation. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the existing testing facilities were "inadequate".
"Without adequate testing facilities we cannot conquer this menace", Dr Singh said.
"10 million tests should be conducted to reach the threshold level of 1 per cent of the population," said senior leader and former union minister Jairam Ramesh.
Earlier too, Mr Gandhi had also stressed upon the need for expanding the test base, which experience from other nations show is the key method to counter the virus.
But with the swab-based RT-PCR tests being both tie consuming and expensive, the government has not been able to test a big section of the population.
The Rapid Test Kits -- which tests the presence of coronavirus antibodies in blood -- on the other hand, have not proved very reliable in other nations. So the Indian Council Of Medical Research – the nodal body for coronavirus testing – has not been keen on it, especially for random mass testing. But following the insistence of states, it has distributed the Rapid Test kits imported from China, advising that they be used in the virus hotspots.
Last week, after four days of testing, Rajasthan said the Rapid Test kits were giving faulty results. Only 5.4per cent of the results were correct, the state said. Two other states – Kerala and Tamil Nadu – had given similar feedback, sources in the ICMR had said.
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