The Centre on Tuesday declared that it is in talks with 51 accredited private homegrown laboratories in a bid to counter the novel coronavirus in the country, as per media reports.

The director-general of the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) Balram Bhargava stated in a press conference: “We are in the process of engaging private NABL (National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories)accredited laboratories for carrying out testing of Covid-19 cases.”

He appealed to all private laboratories to diagnose people for COVID-19 free of cost.

The ICMR released ‘Strategy of Covid-19 testing in India’ and put forth the guidelines for private sector laboratories that want to go further with the Covid-19 testing, Hindustan Times reported.

In the guidelines, the ICMR mentioned that the lab testing should only be conducted when prescribed by a qualified physician as per ICMR guidance.

ICMR stated that the Standard Operation Protocol (SOPs) will be shared by the institution as soon as the concerned private lab procures the primers, probes, and reagents.

It mentioned that the adoption of commercial kits for testing should be based on validations conducted by the lCMR-National Institute of Virology (NIV): Pune. ICMR ordered the laboratories to undertake appropriate “biosafety and biosecurity” precautions while collecting samples. Alternatively, the ICMR suggested the creation of a “disease-specific separate collection site.”

ICMR asked the private labs to ensure immediate/real-time reporting of initiation of contact tracing and other research activities to the state government and other authorities, HT report added.

So far, India has reported 147 cases of coronavirus in the country. India has shut its shores for international carriers and restricted inter-state travels in order to curb the spread of the virus.

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